Machine Learning Based Depression Prediction Using Nutritional Factors

Background:In recent years, depression has been rapidly increasing in Korea, with a 35.1% rise in cases over the past 5 years.Globally, about 280 million people suffer from depression.While many studies focus on social factors, some also point to the impact of diet and nutrients on mental health.This research aims to identify how nutrition affects depression using big data and machine learning (ML), providing evidence for precision nutrition medicine and developing a depression prediction system utilizing explainable artificial intelligence for clinical use.Methods: This study utilized data from the Korea National Health & Nutrition Examination Survey (2020, 2018, 2016, and 2014) to analyze depression in adults aged 20-59, focusing on the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) scale, which is measured every 2 years.After excluding missing values, 11,463 subjects were included, with 594 classified as depressed (PHQ-9 score 10) and 10,869 classified as normal (PHQ-9 score 9).Statistical analysis involved 2 tests for general characteristics and independent t-tests for body mass index, sedentary hours, and nutritional intake.ML classification was performed using XGBoost, with an 8:2 data split.Accuracy, precision, recall, F1 score, and area under the receiver operating characteristic curve were calculated to evaluate performance.The results were further interpreted using SHAP summary plots, broken down by sex and age groups.Results: Although there were slight differences in the effects of nutrients on depression depending on sex and age, overall, maintaining sufficient intake of minerals and vitamins was significantly associated with a reduction in depression.Conclusion: ML based depression prediction, despite including well-known factors such as stress, subjective physical health status, socioeconomic factors, health behaviors, and disease conditions, many types of nutrients ranked high in importance and proved effective in enhancing the accuracy of depression diagnosis.Including nutritional factors in depression prediction could contribute to realizing precision medicine as part of a digital healthcare system.