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 4 Daily intake of food groups and nutrients at baseline among participants at follow-up (n = 4701)

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	49.9	31.0	50.9	25.8	0.009
Meat and chicken	38.9	25.3	36.9	21.3	0.080
Dairy products	125.3	109.1	132.2	107.2	0.023
Vegetables	141.9	78.2	138.5	79.4	0.136
Nutrients
Energy (kcal)	1715	350	1727	327	0.193
Protein (g)	53.5	12.0	53.5	10.3	0.546
Fat (g)	45.0	11.8	43.8	10.6	0.013
Carbohydrate (g)	241	64	244	61	0.131
Calcium (mg)	521	148	532	145	0.038
Vitamin B₁ (mg)	0.656	0.098	0.651	0.083	0.232
Vitamin B₂ (mg)	1.10	0.25	1.12	0.25	0.006
Vitamin D (μg)	7.22	3.60	7.41	3.15	0.019
Carotene (μg)	3257	1394	3197	1351	0.244
Saturated fatty acids (g)	11.48	3.01	11.43	2.69	0.997
Monounsaturated fatty acids (g)	16.58	4.16	16.05	3.76	0.001
n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (g)	11.32	3.03	10.90	2.83	< 0.001
n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (g)	2.29	0.61	2.24	0.54	0.060
n-3 highly-polyunsaturated fatty acids (g)	0.714	0.364	0.730	0.314	0.032

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

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