The protective effect of mushroom consumption on depressive symptoms in Korean population

Mushrooms are nutraceutical food with health benefit. However, available data is still limited in identifying the effect of mushrooms consumption on depressive symptoms. In a cohort of 87,822 Korean, we longitudinally assessed the risk of depressive symptoms according to mushrooms consumption. Study participants were categorized into 5 groups by the frequency of one serving size of mushrooms (30 g) as follows: rare/never, < 1/month, 1/month–1/week, 1–3/week, ≥ 3/week. The development of depressive symptoms was determined in Center for epidemiological studies-depression scale ≥ 16. Cox proportional hazards model was used to calculate adjusted hazard ratio (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for depressive symptoms (adjusted HR [95% CI]). Subgroup analysis was performed for gender and age. Compared with group with rare/never consumption, groups with mushrooms consumption ≥ one serving size/month had the significantly decreased levels in adjusted HR and 95% CI for depressive symptoms (rare/never consumption: reference, < 1/month: 0.92 [0.83–1.02], 1/month–1/week: 0.88 [0.83–0.94], 1–3/week: 0.88 [0.82–0.94], ≥ 3/week: 0.86 [0.80–0.93]). This association was similarly observed in both gender and age subgroup analyses. However, women and participants ≥ age of 40 showed the more prominent association than men and participants < age of 40.