ArticlePreventive medicine reports2023
The effect of Mediterranean diet instructions on depression, anxiety, stress, and anthropometric indices: A randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical trial.
Article in Preventive medicine reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Adherence to the MIND (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay) diet and depression, stress, and anxiety: a systematic review.BMC nutrition · 2026Pooled it
- Anti-inflammatory diets and mental health: a scoping review of randomized controlled trials and systematic evidence syntheses.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Diet, the Gut Microbiome, and Mental Health: Mechanistic Perspectives.Molecular nutrition & food research · 2026Review
- Loneliness, Aloneness, and Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet in Southern Italian Individuals.Nutrients · 2026Article
- Mediterranean Diet Adherence Is Associated with Lower Prevalence of Depression and Anxiety in University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study in Greece.Diseases (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Diet quality measured using the Mediterranean diet score and anxiety during armed conflict.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Pathophysiology of depression and anxiety in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.World journal of gastrointestinal pathophysiology · 2025Review
- War, diet, and PTSD in Ukrainian youth.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Association Between Anxiety and Diet Quality Among Polish Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Association of the mediterranean diet with mental well-being: a cross-sectional study among adults living in Lebanon.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Hypothetical interventional effect of health behaviors for improving depression symptoms among patients diagnosed with cancer: a g-formula based study.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Explainable Machine Learning in the Prediction of Depression.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Culinary Habits and Health: Analyzing the Impact of Cooking Practices and Knowledge Among Spanish Young Adults.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Associations Between Mediterranean Diet, Processed Food Consumption, and Symptoms of Anxiety and Depression: Cross-Sectional Study Among Israeli Adults.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Gut microbiota, nutrients, and depression.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Review
- Exploring the association between nutrition knowledge and generalized anxiety disorder among young adults in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: implications for Saudi Vision 2030.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Nutritional psychology and inflammatory bowel disease: a narrative review of gut-brain axis interactions.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Review
- Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Evidence suggests that adopting a healthy diet, such as the Mediterranean Diet (MD), can positively affect mental health. To further explore this, a study was conducted to determine the impact of MD instruction over 12 weeks on depression, anxiety, stress, and anthropometric indices. The study is a randomized, double-blind, controlled clinical trial with sixty participants who reported stress, anxiety, and depression conducted in Tabriz, Iran (2022-2023). They were randomly assigned to either the intervention group (n = 30), which received MD instruction, or the control group (n = 30), which received standard healthy nutrition education. Both groups were asked to follow their respective nutrition education plans for 12 weeks. After 12 weeks, depression, anxiety, and stress levels were measured using the DASS-21 questionnaire, and anthropometric indices were assessed. Initially, the unadjusted DASS-21 scores for depression, anxiety, and stress did not show significant differences between the two groups. However, after adjusting for baseline variables (model 2), all scores decreased significantly (the P-value for all scores was < 0.001). There was no significant difference in weight and BMI between the intervention and control groups. However, after adjusting the results based on baseline values (Model 2) and adherence to the program (Model 3), weight and BMI were significantly reduced in the MD group (P-values for both cases and both models were < 0.001). Overall, despite some significant findings, the results were not noticeable from a clinical perspective. The study provides some indications that following the Mediterranean diet may lead to improvements in weight and mental well-being.
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Registered trials
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