A new study conducted by the Sahlgrenska University in Sweden shows that eating diet full of vegetables during pregnancy period can significantly reduce the chances of developing diabetes in the baby.
Children who are at risk of type 1 diabetes have certain antibodies that affect the ability of the pancreas cells to produce insulin. This leads to insulin deficiency due to which sugar doesn’t get converted into energy for the cells and leads to type 1 diabetes. The team of researchers from the Swedish University examined blood samples of 6, 000 five-yearold children to learn their probability of type 1 diabetes. Out of the total number of kids, who had volunteered, three per cent were found to have higher level of antibodies that trigger diabetes. Even few of the kids were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of five. While examining the kids’ samples, the researchers found out that the samples had a striking similarity to the questionnaires filled by their mothers prior to the study.
[Read: Pregnancy Diet Plan]
In the questionnaires, mothers were asked to write down the foods that they had during their pregnancies along with mentioning if they ate vegetables regularly or not. By the term ‘vegetables’ researchers meant all veggies except root vegetables, such as raddish, turnip and carrot. The study found that those mothers, who had significantly low intake of vegetables in their pregnancies, had children with high level of type 1 diabetes causing antibodies. In fact, these children were almost twice likely to develop type 1 diabetes as compared to the other kids whose mothers used to have sufficient amount of vegetables during their pregnancies.
[Read: Poor Nutrition Causes Diabetes in Children]
Hilde Brekke, researcher and clinical nutritionist from the Sahlgrenska University said that this is the first study to explore the link between vegetable consumption during pregnancy and the chances of the child developing type 1 diabetes in childhood. Brekke further added that more studies are required to draw a definitive judgment on this link.
Apart from the elevated levels of antibodies in child’s body, there are other causes that may trigger the onset of type 1 diabetes in children, some of them are:
- genetic predisposition to type 1 diabetes
- exposure to chemicals such as the rodenticide vacor, streptozotocin and pentamidine, alloxan
- various viruses such as mumps, measles, rubella and Epstein-Barr
- poor diet lacking sufficient amount of wheat and vitamin D.
In infants or toddlers, a short breast-feeding span may also be a possible reason of type 1 diabetes.
Read more articles on Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus Prevention.