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Introduction: Alexithymia is a condition characterized byinability in explaining and describing feelings, distinguishingbodily sensations, and expressing feelings toward others. Therelationships between alexithymia and dietary intakes of minerals among Jordanian people have not been well-characterized. Therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate theassociations between dietary intakes of macro- and micro-minerals and alexithymia.
Methods: Seven hundred and fifty three Jordanian adultscompleted face-to-face interviews through cross-sectionalstudy conducted among voluntary participants aged 18-64years. Every participant was asked to fill in questionnaires re-garding their socio-demographic characteristics, anthropo-metric measurements, and dietary intakes. The 20-itemToronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) was used for measuringalexithymia among participants. Data analysis was conductedusing SPSS (version 25). Independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA tests were used to determine significance meandifferences between different subgroups of each categoricalvariable based on TAS-20 scores. Logistic regression analyseswere conducted to find out the association between quartilesof dietary intakes of minerals and the risk of alexithymia.Statistical significance was set at p-value <0.05.
Results: Findings of the study indicated that about 10.4%of Jordanian adults classified with having alexithymia withscores of (TAS-20) Scale ≥ 61. Females, participants withmonthly incomes higher than 700 JOD, participants with loweducational levels, and obese participants scored significantly higher scores of (TAS-20) scale in comparison to other groupsfor each variable. Odds ratios for associations between alex-ithymia quartiles of dietary intake of minerals were calculatedafter adjusting for gender, education level, physical activity,and BMI. By comparing highest intake (Quartile 4) with thelowest intake (Quartile 1), adjusted odds ratios have shownthat two macro-minerals (calcium and magnesium) and threemicro-minerals (iron, zinc, and selenium) have significantnegative association with alexithymia Conclusion: The distribution of alexithymia amongJordanian adults was very low. Mental conditions require appropriate dietary interventions that assure the maintaining ofhealthy weight and the consumption of adequate intakes ofnutrients especially macro- and micro-minerals. Further ob-servational and experimental studies are highly recommended to explore the role of action and specific mechanismsof these minerals with mental conditions such as alexithymia.
