Prefer Sugary Treats? You May be 31 Percent More Likely to Experience Depression, Study Reveals - Video

People with a preference for sweets are at a higher risk of developing depression, diabetes, and suffering a stroke, according to new research from the University of Surrey.

The study, published in the Journal of Translational Medicine, took anonymised information on the food preferences of 180,000 volunteers within the UK Biobank and used artificial intelligence to group them into three general profiles:

Health-conscious: prefer fruits and vegetables over animal-based and sweet foods.

Omnivore: Likes most foods, including meats, fish, and some vegetables, as well as sweets and desserts.

Sweet tooth: Prefer sweet foods and sugary drinks and is less interested in healthier options like fruit and vegetables.

The Surrey team looked at UK Biobank data on blood samples where 2,923 proteins and 168 metabolites had been measured to see how these levels changed in each group.

By comparing these blood-based proteins and metabolites, the researchers could get a clearer picture of the biological differences between the groups.

Professor Nophar Geifman, senior author of the study and Professor of Health and Biomedical Informatics at the University of Surrey, said:

"The foods that you like or dislike seem to directly link to your health. If your favourite foods are cakes, sweets, and sugary drinks, then our study's results suggest that this may have negative effects on your health. We found that the sweet tooth group are 31% more likely to have depression. We also found that the sweet tooth group had higher rates of diabetes, as well as vascular heart conditions, compared to the other two groups.

"Importantly, by using data-driven Artificial Intelligence methods, we were able to identify groups of people defined by their food preferences, and these groups are meaningful in that they are linked to health outcomes as well as biological markers.

The researchers also looked at differences between the three groups in standard blood biochemistry tests.

Professor Geifman continues:

"In the sweet tooth group, they had higher levels of C reactive protein, which is a marker for inflammation. Their blood results also show higher levels of glucose and poor lipid profiles, which is a strong warning sign for diabetes and heart disease."

Conversely, the health-conscious group, which also had higher dietary fibre intake, had lower risks for heart failure, chronic kidney diseases and stroke, while the omnivore group had moderate health risks.