Eating five portions of fruit and vegetables per day is not only beneficial to physical health, but also to mental health. British researchers arrived at this conclusion in a study that was published in the «BMJ Open».
For the study, which was carried out by researchers at the University of Warwick (Coventry), 14,000 participants in England aged over 16 were interviewed about their mental and physical health, as well as about diverse lifestyle factors. It showed that fruit and vegetable consumption correlated with high, respectively low, mental wellbeing.
While 33.5 per cent of those who consumed at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day associated this with a high level of wellbeing, this was only the case in 6.8 per cent of those who did not even eat one portion a day. 28.4 per cent of those with high mental wellbeing ate one to two portions, and 31.4 per cent, three to four. Smoking had the opposite effect; alcohol and obesity were not linked to wellbeing.
«Along with smoking, fruit and vegetable consumption was the health-related behaviour most consistently associated with both low and high mental wellbeing. These findings suggest that fruit and vegetable intake may play a potential role as a driver, not just of physical, but also of mental wellbeing in the general population», said study author Saverio Stranges.
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