Associations between diet and mental health using the 12-item General Health Questionnaire: cross-sectional and prospective analyses from the Japan Multi-Institutional Collaborative Cohort Study

Table 3 Daily intake of food groups and nutrients among participants at baseline (n = 9298)

Continuous variables	Participants with a GHQ score ≥ 4		Participants with a GHQ score < 4
Continuous variables	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	P^a
Food groups (g)
Fish	46.0	24.8	50.2	26.9	< 0.001
Meat and chicken	38.3	21.7	37.2	21.6	0.006
Dairy products	123.2	104.5	126.4	105.3	0.147
Vegetables	132.9	77.9	136.9	78.7	0.012
Nutrients
Energy (kcal)	1667	330	1718	338	< 0.001
Protein (g)	51.7	10.2	53.2	10.7	< 0.001
Fat (g)	44.5	10.6	43.7	10.8	0.001
Carbohydrate (g)	232	60	242	62	< 0.001
Calcium (mg)	510	141	523	143	< 0.001
Vitamin B₁ (mg)	0.654	0.081	0.652	0.086	0.192
Vitamin B₂ (mg)	1.08	0.25	1.10	0.25	< 0.001
Vitamin D (μg)	6.69	2.84	7.30	3.20	< 0.001
Carotene (μg)	3113	1381	3170	1334	0.009
Saturated fatty acids (g)	11.41	2.67	11.36	2.70	0.409
Monounsaturated fatty acids (g)	16.40	3.84	16.09	3.81	< 0.001
n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (g)	11.07	2.90	10.91	2.87	0.012
n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (g)	2.22	0.53	2.23	0.55	0.250
n-3 highly-polyunsaturated fatty acids (g)	0.664	0.282	0.720	0.318	< 0.001

GHQ General Health Questionnaire, SD Standard deviation. ^aFood groups: Mann-Whitney test; nutrients: t-test after logarithmic transformation

ISSN: 1475-2891