New Study Links Soft Drink Consumption To Depression In Women

NEW YORK — A new study has linked soft drink consumption to depression in woman.

According to a study published in JAMA Psychiatry, researchers in Germany have found that higher consumption of sugary drinks was associated with a greater risk of major depressive disorder. For the first time, they have identified a potential biological culprit: the changes that soda causes in our gut bacteria, specifically an increase in a bug called Eggerthella, Northwell Health media representatives said in a release.

Dr. Anna K. Costakis, MD, Psychiatry, Psychiatry Residency Program Director at Northwell Staten Island University Hospital, reflected: "They looked at 405 individuals and how this correlated with severity and incidence of depression, of major depressive disorder. What they found was indeed, soft drink consumption does correlate to major depressive disorder in terms of affecting gut microbiome. Which is also another hot topic, especially Eggerthella."

The gut microbiome, she said, seems to be particularly affected, and that interventions looking at decreasing soft drink consumption can be particularly impactful for depression risk and severity.

"They found that women in particular are, for some reason, somehow more predisposed to the effects of soda on their gut microbiome and their rates of depression," Costakis said. "It’s an interesting study that I think dovetails well with recent other research that's been done really in the last five to six years, highlighting not only gender differences in psychiatric illnesses, but across the board."

On probiotic beverages as an alternative, Costakis said she didn't know if turning to probiotics "in any form possible" was the answer. "I don't know that. I don't know that this is the response, because most of those beverages are also so chock full of either real sugar or artificial sugar. And the artificial sweeteners disrupt the gut microbiome just as much as regular sugar. Fundamentally, it all goes back to our roots needing to just have a well-balanced, not processed, whole foods diet with all of the components necessary."

Some probiotics that are good quality in terms of capsules or powders are definitely beneficial, she said. "But I think not putting in these clear toxins that we're finding right into our bodies is probably the best thing we can do," Costakis said. "Recent studies found alcohol is a toxin in no matter what form and quantity. Now we are just establishing what I think we intuitively knew: Sugar in every form and anything with preservatives — so basically, the entire substance of what a soda is — is unhealthy for us and can negatively impact a mental health, physical health, all health."

Also, the study indicated that the gender specific differences were very clear, Costakis said.

"The study found that women have a particular susceptibility in this gut microbiome, to diet in general, and specifically these pro-inflammatory components," she said. "The flip side of that is while women have been found more sensitive to the adverse effects of poor diet, they are also more responsive to dietary interventions for depression than men."

Dr. Arun Swaminath, MD, Gastroenterology, Director of the Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Program at Lenox Hill Hospital, also spoke out on the new study.

"It's not so much that the Eggerthella causes depression. You know, it's a really interesting paper because they've found this association between drinking high sugary soft drinks with depression, and that's been in multiple studies. But what's super interesting is that they might have found one of the pieces of the puzzle about how these two things are connected and in women especially, who have this bacteria in high amounts, and that seems to be in the association between soft drink usage, Eggerthella and major depression."