ArticleJournal of clinical medicine research2026
Dietary Behavior and Risk of Depression: Effects of Ultra-Processed Food and Water Intake in a National Sample of the United States.
Article in Journal of clinical medicine research, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Diet is increasingly recognized as a modifiable determinant of mental health. High intake of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) can be associated with poor psychological outcomes; however, the protective role of hydration, particularly plain water intake, remains underexplored. We aimed to evaluate the independent and combined associations of UPF and water intake with moderate-to-severe depression among the adult population of the United States (US). Methods: We analyzed cross-sectional data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2021-2023. UPF intake was proxied using the percentage of daily calories from added sugars and categorized into quartiles. Water intake (g/day) was similarly categorized into quartiles. Moderate-to-severe depression was defined as a Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) score ≥ 10. Survey-weighted logistic regression models assessed associations between diet exposures and depression risk, adjusting for age, sex, and body mass index (BMI). Subgroup, sensitivity, and interaction analyses were conducted. Results: Prevalence of PHQ-9-based depression in our sample was 10.9%. Participants in the highest UPF quartile had higher odds of PHQ-9-based depression when compared to the lowest (odds ratio (OR) = 1.547, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.545-1.550, P < 0.001). Conversely, those in the highest water intake quartile had lower odds of PHQ-9-based depression (OR = 0.486, 95% CI: 0.486-0.487, P < 0.001). The UPF-water interaction was statistically significant but of minimal clinical relevance. Subgroup analyses showed more severe vulnerabilities to depression from UPF consumption among males, Black and Hispanic individuals, and those with lower educational attainment. A small but statistically significant interaction (β = -0.07, P = 0.017) indicated that water intake modestly attenuated the UPF-depression relationship. Associations persisted after exclusion of extreme BMI values. Conclusions: Increased UPF intake is associated with higher risk of depression in the US adults while increased water intake confers a protective effect. These findings underscore the need for dietary strategies that simultaneously reduce UPF intake and promote hydration, with tailored interventions for the high-risk groups.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.