Madrid, Apr 1 (IANS): Eating fast food such as hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza and even baked items could send you into a tailspin of blues.

A recent study by scientists from the universities of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Granada, Spain, revealed that consumers of fast food were 51 percent more likely to develop depression, compared to those who ate little or none.

"The more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression," Almudena Sanchez-Villegas, who led the study, told SINC, (Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) the journal Public Health Nutrition reports.

The study demonstrated that those participants who ate the most fast food and commercial baked goods were more likely to be single, less active and had poor dietary habits, which include eating less fruit, nuts, fish, vegetables and olive oil.

Smoking and working more than 45 hours per week were other prevalent characteristics of this group, according to a statement of Granada and Las Palmas.

Regarding baked goods, the results were equally conclusive. "Even eating small quantities is linked to a significantly higher chance of developing depression," pointed out Sanchex-Villegas from Las Palmas University.

The study sample under SUN Project (University of Navarra Diet and Lifestyle Tracking Program), comprised 8,964 participants, who had never been diagnosed with depression or taken anti-depressants.

They were assessed for an average of six months and 493 were diagnosed with depression or started to take anti-depressants.

Depression affects 121 million people worldwide.