A new study suggests that pregnant mothers who eat lots of meat and keep their carbs down may risk having stressed babies.
UK scientists studied 86 people who were born in 1967-68. Their mothers had been told to eat a pound of red meat each day while they were pregnant, and to consume few carbohydrates, as a way of preventing complications during pregnancy – especially pre-eclampsia.
The higher the consumption of meat, the higher the amount of cortisol was present in the child, said the researchers. Cortisol is a stress hormone.
The 86 people, now in their late thirties, had to carry out a series of stressful undertakings, such as mental arithmetic and talking in public. Before and after each undertaking their cortisol levels were measured as well as their blood pressure.
The researchers found that the subjects whose mothers had followed a high meat, low carb diet during the pregnancies suffered from higher levels of cortisol than other people.
Dr Rebecca Reynolds, study leader, said ?This study adds to the increasing evidence of the importance of the maternal diet and suggests that one of the ways in which it can have these long term effects is by permanently altering stress hormone levels. We don’t know why this occurs – it may be that the baby is put under stress during pregnancy which causes irreversibly high levels of cortisol.”
Dr Reynolds also suggested that popular low-carb diets, such as Atkins, should be avoided during pregnancy.
The findings were presented today at the European Congress of Endocrinology, Glasgow, Scotlant.
Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today