Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Biopsychology, Department of Psychology, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany.
J Affect Disord. 2021 Nov 1;294:813-815. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2021.07.098. Epub 2021 Jul 31.
Several studies have suggested an association between vegetarian diet and higher depression scores. However, some studies have also shown an effect in the opposite direction, indicating lower depression scores in vegetarians. Given this discrepancy in the literature, this meta-analysis was aimed to determine whether there is a significant association between vegetarian diet and depression scores across different published studies.
A keyword search in major databases was conducted. Studies reporting depression scores in vegetarians and a non-vegetarian control group were included. Meta-analysis following a conditional random-effects procedure was conducted in R.
After duplicates were removed and studies were analyzed for inclusion criteria, k=13 studies with an overall n of 49889 participants (8057 vegetarians and 41832 non-vegetarian controls) were included in the analysis. Random-effects meta-analysis revealed a significant difference between vegetarians and non-vegetarians, with vegetarians showing higher depression scores than non-vegetarians.
The heterogeneity between studies was high and geographical variation in study location was low, limiting cross-cultural insights.
Vegetarians show higher depression scores than non-vegetarians. However, due to high heterogeneity of published studies, more empirical research is needed before any final conclusions can be drawn. Also, empirical studies from a higher number of different countries would be desirable.
多项研究表明素食饮食与更高的抑郁评分之间存在关联。然而，一些研究也表明了相反的效果，即素食者的抑郁评分较低。鉴于文献中的这种差异，本荟萃分析旨在确定不同已发表研究中素食饮食与抑郁评分之间是否存在显著关联。
在主要数据库中进行了关键词搜索。纳入报告素食者和非素食对照组抑郁评分的研究。在 R 中采用条件随机效应程序进行荟萃分析。
去除重复项并分析纳入标准后，共有 13 项研究纳入分析，总共有 49889 名参与者（8057 名素食者和 41832 名非素食对照组）。随机效应荟萃分析显示，素食者和非素食者之间存在显著差异，素食者的抑郁评分高于非素食者。
研究之间的异质性很高，研究地点的地域差异较低，限制了跨文化的见解。
素食者的抑郁评分高于非素食者。然而，由于已发表研究的高度异质性，在得出任何最终结论之前，需要进行更多的实证研究。此外，来自更多不同国家的实证研究将是理想的。
