Amelia Martí del Moral

A pilot trial assessed the feasibility and acceptability of reducing the consumption of ultra-processed foods in the diets of patients with major depressive disorder. The study, which involved twenty participants from the United States, has been published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry and shows that scores for depression and anxiety were lower during the period of reduced consumption of ultra-processed foods than during the period of their usual diet. According to the authors, this is an exploratory study – in the form of a Research Letter – and, “at best, it generates hypotheses”.

The use of the antidepressants escitalopram, paroxetine, and duloxetine is associated with greater weight gain than the use of sertraline, according to the results of an analysis comparing data from more than 183,000 adults treated with one of eight types of antidepressants. Among these, bupropion is associated with the least weight gain, concludes the study, which is published in Annals of Internal Medicine.