主観的な咀嚼状況と疲労自覚症状や抑うつ度との関係

抄録

BACKGROUND：Chewing impacts many health conditions. While recent research has shown that young people’s chewing ability is declining, few studies have reported the relationship between chewing status and lifestyle, fatigue and depression levels in younger generations. OBJECTIVE：This study aimed to investigate the relationship between subjective chewing status and fatigue and depressive status among college students. METHODS：An online survey was disseminated among college students aged 20‒25. Survey items gathered information on basic demographics, lifestyle, subjective chewing status, subjective symptoms of fatigue, and a questionnaire on depressive status（Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression［CES-D］）. The relationships between subjective chewing status and lifestyle, subjective symptoms of fatigue, and CES-D score were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression analysis after divided the participants into two groups, using the median of the total score for subjective symptoms of fatigue and 16 points as the cutoff for CES-D. RESULTS：Significant differences were found between groups in the relationships between subjective chewing status and subjective health status, nutritional balance of meals, mealtime regularity, bedtime, sleep status, and exercise habits. The better the subjective chewing status, the more people adopted a good lifestyle. Better chewing status was significantly associated with lower obesity rate, fatigue and CES-D scores. Regarding bad chewing status, the adjusted odds ratio was 2.30（95% confidence interval［CI］ : 1.33-3.97） for subjective fatigue and 2.62（95%CI：1.28-5.33） for depressive status. CONCLUSION：College students with better chewing status exhibited better lifestyle habits and lower obesity rate, subjective symptoms of fatigue and depressive status.