Eating oily fish may lower anxiety when pregnant

Conclusion The current study suggests an association between specific dietary patterns (“health conscious” and “traditional” patterns) and n-3 PUFA intake from seafood and anxiety in pregnancy. Its strengths include its large size and ability to assess and take into account a large number of factors. There are two main limitations to these findings. Firstly, diet and anxiety symptoms were assessed at the same time, therefore the researchers cannot tell whether the dietary patterns were established before the women started to experience anxiety or not. Secondly, the association may be being influenced by factors other than diet. The researchers took a wide range of factors into account in their analyses, such as the women’s experience of stressful life events, and indicators of their socioeconomic status. However, mental health, and how it can be influenced, is an extremely complex issue so there may well be other factors which could be having an effect. For example, physical activity was not assessed and could have an impact. Overall, this study by itself cannot prove that your diet directly influences anxiety in pregnancy. However, the “health conscious” and “traditional” patterns of eating and diets including oily fish that were associated with lower anxiety in this study seem likely to be what would be considered a healthy balanced diet. And following a healthy diet is already known be important for the health of both mother and baby. Read more about ...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Food/diet Pregnancy/child Source Type: news