Association between dietary omega-3 fatty acid intake and depression in postmenopausal women

This study aimed to analyze the association between dietary omega-3 fatty acid intake and depression in postmenopausal women using data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES) VI.

The KNHANES is a cross-sectional nationwide health and nutrition survey. Dietary data, including omega-3 fatty acids, were assessed using the 24-h recall method. Depression was evaluated using a survey questionnaire. The association between dietary omega-3 fatty acids and depression was evaluated using multivariate logistic regression analysis. Depression, according to the dietary omega-3 fatty acid intake, was expressed as the odds ratio (OR) with a 95% confidence interval (CI). A total of 4,150 postmenopausal women were included in the analysis.

In the fully-adjusted model, the group with the highest dietary omega-3 fatty acid intake significantly showed lower prevalence of depression than the group with the lowest intake (OR, 0.52; 95% CI, 0.33-0.83); a significant linear trend was detected (P for trend = 0.04). According to the dose-response analysis using cubic restricted spline regression, this association was linear and monotonic (P for non-linearity = 0.32).

In this study, the dietary omega-3 fatty acid intake in postmenopausal women was inversely proportional to depression in a dose-response manner. Large cohort studies are needed to verify the causality between omega-3 fatty acids and depression in Korean postmenopausal women.