The increasing proportion of people growing old, demands expanded knowledge of how people can experience successful aging. Having a good life while growing old is dependent on several factors such as nutrition, physical health, the ability to perform activities of daily living, lifestyle and psychological health. Furthermore, unhealthy food intake is found to be a modifiable risk factor for depression in elderly people. To promote elderly’s health and wellbeing, the influence of nutrition, lifestyle, physical functioning, and social support on psychological distress needs exploring. Therefore, the purpose of this present study is to investigate the associations between psychological distress and diet patterns when adjusting for other life style behaviors, wellbeing, health status, physical functioning and social support in elderly people. The present study is cross sectional, using data from wave three of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (2006–2008). Data include psychological distress measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), sociodemographic information, measurements of lifestyle behaviours (including diet patterns), wellbeing, health status, social support and physical functioning. The sample consisted of 11,621 participants, 65 years or older. Cluster analysis categorized the participants in two food clusters based on similarities in food consumption (healthy N = 9128, unhealthy N = 2493). Stepwise multivariable linear regression analyses revealed that lesser psychological distress in the elderly was dependent on gender, diet, smoking, better scores on health and wellbeing, social support and less problems performing instrumental activities of daily living. Knowledge about the influence of diet patterns in relation to psychological distress provide valuable insights into how society can promote healthy lifestyles to an ageing population, e.g. by increasing older people’s food knowledge.

Objective: We aimed to identify dietary patterns (DP) of Portuguese adults, to assess their socioeconomic, demographic, lifestyle determinants and to identify their impact on health. Design: EpiDoC 2 study included 10,153 Portuguese adults from the EpiDoC Cohort, a population based study. In this study, trained research assistants using computed assisted telephone interview collected socioeconomic, demographic, dietary, lifestyles and health information from March 2013 to July 2015. Cluster analysis was performed, based on questions regarding the number of meals, weekly frequency of soup consumption, vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, dairy products and daily water intake. Factors associated with DP were identified through logistic regression models. Results: Two DPs were identified: the “meat dietary pattern” and the “fruit & vegetables dietary pattern”. After multivariable adjustment, women (OR=0.52; p0.001), older adults (OR=0.97; p0.001) and individuals with more years of education (OR=0.96; p=0.025) were less likely to adopt the “meat dietary pattern”, while individuals in a situation of job insecurity/unemployment (OR=1.49; p=0.013), Azores islands residents (OR=1.40; p=0.026), current smoking (OR=1.58; p=0.001), daily alcohol intake (OR=1.46; p=0.023) and physically inactive (OR=1.86; p0.001) were positively and significantly associated with “meat dietary pattern”. Moreover, individuals with depression symptoms (OR=1.50; p=0.018) and the ones who did lower number of medical appointments in the previous year (OR=0.98; p=0.025) were less likely to report this DP. Conclusions: Our results suggest that unhealthy DPs (meat dietary pattern) are part of a lifestyle behaviour that includes physical inactivity, smoking habits and alcohol consumption. Moreover, depression symptoms are also associated with unhealthy DPs.