Background and Objectives: Depression is one of the main causes of disability, affecting 121 million individuals worldwide. Anti-depression drugs are successful for 60-80% of depression cases; however, less than 25% of these patients are treated with appropriate drugs. Considering the importance of nutrition-related factors, we aimed to identify dietary patterns as potential preventive or treatment agents to control the depression. This study will identify relationship between dietary patterns and depression.

 Materials and Methods: In total, 110 depressed patients, diagnosed by psychiatrists, and 220 healthy individuals were studied as the case and control groups, respectively. A semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire was used to assess the dietary intakes, and the dietary patterns were extracted by factor analysis.

Results: Two dietary patterns were identified: Healthy and Unhealthy. There were significant relations between the dietary patterns and depression, as Healthy dietary pattern could decrease the risk (p=0.028) and Unhealthy dietary pattern could increase the risk of depression (p=0.03). The relationships were dose-dependent, as the risk of depression decreased with increasing the quartiles of Healthy dietary pattern, and increased with increasing the quartiles of Unhealthy dietary pattern (p≤0.02).

Conclusion: Consumption of healthy foods and avoiding unhealthy foods could be associated with the prevention and control of depression. Nevertheless, since food consumption is embedded in culture, the recommended diet should be based on the cultural differences, which demands further studies.

Keywords: Depression, Nutrition, Dietary pattern, Factor analysis, Case control study