Dietary magnesium intake and risk of depression

Background: Depression is an important public health problem. The aim of the present study is to examine the association of dietary magnesium intake with risk of depression. Methods: We assessed the association between dietary magnesium intake and risk of depression in a nationally representative sample of 17,730 adults from the 2007-2014 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Magnesium intake was assessed by 24 h dietary recalls. Depression was assessed using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9. Logistic regression and restricted cubic spline models were applied to assess the relationship between dietary magnesium intake and risk of depression. Results: Dietary magnesium intake was inversely associated with risk of depression, and the multivariate adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) of depression for the highest vs lowest category of dietary magnesium intake was 0.47(0.34-0.66). In subgroup analysis, dietary magnesium intake was inversely associated with risk of depression among women whereas no association was found among man. The inverse association between dietary magnesium intake and risk of depression was statistically significant among all age groups. A linear relationship (P-for (nonlinearity) = 0.34) was found between dietary magnesium intake and risk of depression in dose-response analysis. Limitations: This was a cross-sectional study, thus causality cannot be inferred. In addition, data was based on self-reports. Conclusions: Dietary magnesium intake was inversely associated with the risk of depression in a linear manner, which still needs to be confirmed by larger prospective studies.