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Soft Drinks Linked to Depression in Women, Study Finds a Microbiome Signal

A JAMA Psychiatry analysis reports a modest, sex-specific association that remains observational with Eggerthella flagged as a minor mediator.

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Women's mental health takes the hit because of a common non-alcoholic drink.
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Overview

  • Peer-reviewed results from 932 adults in the Marburg–Münster Affective Cohort show higher soft drink intake correlating with a diagnosis of major depressive disorder and greater symptom severity.
  • The association was stronger in women, whose higher intake corresponded to about 17% higher odds of depression (odds ratio ≈1.167) and worse symptom scores.
  • In women, greater intake aligned with increased abundance of the gut bacterium Eggerthella, which mediated a small portion of the association (about 3.82% for diagnosis and 5.00% for severity).
  • Men showed neither a significant link between soft drink intake and depressive symptoms nor a clear increase in Eggerthella in this cross-sectional dataset.
  • Authors recommend incorporating dietary assessment and reducing soft drink consumption in clinical and public-health efforts, while emphasizing that causality has not been established and requires experimental studies.