ARTIFICIAL sweeteners found in drinks like Diet Coke could increase your risk of depression, a study shows.
Eating any ultraprocessed foods — including fizzy drinks, ready-meals and crisps — boosts chances of the blues, US researchers found.
GettySweeteners in drinks like Diet Coke could increase your risk of depression, Harvard researchers found[/caption]
Sweetened drinks increased the risk by 37 per cent, the most of any type of UPF.
Researchers said chemicals in the drinks can cause changes in the brain linked to poor mental health.
Dr Raaj Mehta, of Harvard Medical School, said: “Greater UPF intake, particularly artificially sweetened beverages, is associated with increased risk of depression.”
Around one in six Brits aged 16 or over have moderate to severe depression, Office for National Statistics data shows.
Ultraprocessed foods are any products that have gone through the maximum level of processing, and often contain ingredients you wouldn’t use in the kitchen.
These can include food additives, hydrogenated fats, modified starches, emulsifiers and E numbers, according to the NOVA classification system.
Previous research has linked them with obesity, type 2 diabetes and cancer.
Aspartame — an artificial sweetener found in many ultra-processed drinks like Diet Coke — was labelled “potentially carcinogenic” by the World Health Organization in July.
The health body also issued advice not to use non-sugar sweeteners to lose weight in May.
The latest study, published in JAMA Network Open, looked at how the foods affect people’s chances of depression.
Researchers tracked the eating habits and mental health of more than 31,000 women aged 42 to 62.
None had depression at the start and they were given questionnaires to assess their diets every four years from 2003 to 2017.
Depression was defined as either being diagnosed by a doctor or regularly taking antidepressants.
Eating more than 8.8 servings of UPF of any kind per day increased the risk of depression by 49 per cent compared to having less than four servings a day.
Artificial sweetened beverages increased the risk the most, followed by other artificial sweeteners (26 per cent), sweet snacks (6 per cent) and frozen foods (4 per cent).
Independent experts said more studies are needed to prove the sweeteners are causing depression and why.
Dr Sharmili Edwin Thanarajah, of University Hospital Frankfurt, said: “This study provides an insight into a potential role of artificial sweeteners in mental and physical health.
“But this needs to be confirmed through further research beyond observational data alone.”