Fermented dairy foods consumption and depressive symptoms: A meta-analysis of cohort studies

BACKGROUND: The gut-brain axis has been potentially proposed as a link between the intake of fermented dairy foods and depression. We carried out this meta-analysis on published cohort studies to estimate the overall depression risk of fermented dairy foods intake. METHODS: We searched the CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) and PubMed databases for all articles within a range of published years from 2010 to 2022 on the association between fermented dairy foods intake and depression. RESULTS: Finally, 8 studies met the inclusion criteria for this study, with 83,533 participants. Overall, there was statistical evidence of significantly decreased depression risk was found to be associated with fermented dairy foods intake (OR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.81–0.98). In subgroup analysis, cheese and yogurt consumptions were significantly associated with decreased depression risk (OR = 0.91, 95% CI = 0.84–0.98 for cheese and OR = 0. 84, 95% CI = 0.72–0.99 for yogurt). However, we failed to find superabundant intake of fermented dairy foods intake decreased the risk of depression. CONCLUSION: Our meta-analysis indicated that fermented dairy foods intake may have potential beneficial effect on depression via the gut-brain axis.