Vegetables can protect unborn babies from diabetes

LONDON - Pregnant women who eat vegetables daily seem to bring forth children who are much less likely to develop type-1 diabetes, says a new study.

“This is the first study to show a link between vegetable intake during pregnancy and the risk of the child subsequently developing type-1 diabetes,” says researcher and clinical nutritionist Hilde Brekke from Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden.

Blood samples from nearly 6,000 five-year-olds were analysed in the study. In type-1 diabetes, certain cells in the pancreas gradually get worse at producing insulin, leading to insulin deficiency.

Children at risk of developing type-1 diabetes have antibodies in their blood which attack these insulin-producing cells.

Of the 6,000 children tested, three percent had either elevated levels of these antibodies or fully developed type-1 diabetes at the age of five.

These risk markers were up to twice as common in children whose mothers rarely ate vegetables during pregnancy, a Sahlgrenska release said.

The risk was lowest among children whose mothers stated that they ate vegetables every day. The term “vegetables” in this study included all vegetables except for root vegetables.

The study was undertaken in collaboration with Linkping University, which is conducting a population study called ABIS (All Babies in Southeast Sweden).

The results were published in Paediatric Diabetes.