Eating five a day may keep the blues away.
That’s the upshot of new research that shows getting at least five daily servings of fruits and vegetables may be as good for your mental as your physical health.
The research, conducted by the University of Warwick’s Medical School and published by BMJ Open, is based on a mental health survey involving more than 14,000 British citizens. The results one in three people who reported high levels of mental wellbeing ate five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day, compared with only 7 percent who ate less than one portion.
More than 31 percent of respondents with high mental wellbeing ate three to four portions and about 28 percent ate one or two.
“The data suggest that higher an individual’s fruit and vegetable intake the lower the chance of their having low mental wellbeing,” said lead researcher Saverio Stranges, M.D.
“These novel findings suggest that fruit and vegetable intake may play a potential role as a driver, not just of physical, but also of mental wellbeing in the general population”.
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