A new study from Navarra and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria universities shows that a high consumption of trans-fats and saturated fats can increase an individual’s risk of suffering from depression. The study further demonstrated, “The more trans-fats [that] were consumed, the greater the harmful effect they produced,” says lead author Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, an associate professor of preventive medicine at Las Palmas.

The researchers worked with 12,059 volunteers, of whom none had experienced depression during the previous six years, analyzing the volunteers’ diets, lifestyles and ailments before, during and after the project. At the end of the study, 657 new cases of depression were detected. The researchers confirmed that participants who had consumed the most trans-fats and saturated fats in their diets had increased their risk of the disease by up to 48 percent, compared to those who did not eat these fats or substituted polyunsaturated fats found in olive and other natural plant oils and fish.

Source: PLoSOne.org