New research coming in from Holland shows that expectant mothers who
eat nuts (or nut products like peanut butter) daily during pregnancy
increase their children=92s risk of developing asthma by more than 50
percent over women who rarely or never consume nut products during
their pregnancy.
=93We were pretty surprised to see the adverse associations between
daily versus rare nut product consumption during pregnancy and
symptoms of asthma in children, because we haven=92t seen this in
similar previous studies,=94 said the study=92s lead author, Saskia M.
Willers, M.Sc.
The study appeared in the second July issue for July of the American
Thoracic Society=92s "American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care
Medicine."
Maternal consumption of allergenic foods during pregnancy may increase
the risk that the fetuses they carry would become sensitized to
certain allergens. Research on the topic, however, has been
contradictory and often inconclusive.
Nearly 4,000 expectant mothers from the Prevention and Incidence of
Asthma and Allergy study conducted by the Dutch government completed a
dietary questionnaire that asked how often they consumed vegetables,
fresh fruit, fish, eggs, milk, milk products, nuts and nut products
during the last month. Their children=92s diets were also *****sed at
two years of age, and their asthma and allergy symptoms were *****sed
yearly until eight years of age. By the end of the eight years, the
researchers had complete data for 2,832 children and their mothers. As
studies like this go, this one is large and fairly comprehensive.
=93The only consistent association between the maternal intake of the
investigated food groups during pregnancy and childhood asthma
symptoms until eight years of age that we found was with nut
products,=94 said the lead author. =93Daily versus rare consumption of nut
products=97which we assumed was largely peanut butter=97was consistently
and positively associated with childhood asthma symptoms.=94
The association remained even after controlling for the child=92s diet.
Additionally, the authors noted, there was a small effect of daily
maternal fruit consumption during pregnancy on reducing the risk of
wheeze in children, but other factors such as health-consciousness and
consumption of prenatal vitamins may have been contributing factors in
ways that were undetectable in this study=92s design. Still, this hints
to me of the value of fruit in an overall healthy nutrition program
for pregnant women.
Dave
Full text article above extracted from http://shamvswham.blogspot.com/
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