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A study found that preg­nant women who adhered closely to the Mediter­ranean diet (Med­Diet) had chil­dren with a 32-per­cent lower risk of obe­sity. Accord­ing to one of the authors, the results indi­cate the con­sump­tion of a healthy diet dur­ing preg­nancy has a pos­i­tive effect on child devel­op­ment.

The Med­Diet, some­times called the world’s health­i­est eat­ing plan, includes fruits, veg­eta­bles, whole grains, nuts, legumes, fatty fish and olive oil. While research has linked it to reduced obe­sity and car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk in adults, few stud­ies have explored its effects on chil­dren.

In the new study, sci­en­tists exam­ined data on more than 2,700 preg­nant women from var­i­ous regions of Spain who were enrolled in the INMA-Child­hood and Envi­ron­ment cohort. Par­tic­i­pants com­pleted a ques­tion­naire on dietary intake dur­ing their first and third preg­nancy trimesters. Researchers mon­i­tored the weight, height and diet of the women’s off­spring through­out the first four years of life. The team also mea­sured blood pres­sure and con­ducted blood analy­sis to assess the children’s car­dio­vas­cu­lar health at age 4.

Results revealed that preg­nant women who fol­lowed the Med­Diet closely had a 32-per­cent lower risk of hav­ing chil­dren with higher weight com­pared to women who didn’t adhere to the diet. Off­spring of women who didn’t fol­low the eat­ing plan had a larger birth size, and they expe­ri­enced greater body mass index gain dur­ing the early child­hood years.

“Moth­ers with lower adher­ence to the Mediter­ranean diet were younger, con­sumed more calo­ries, and had a higher prob­a­bil­ity of smok­ing and lower edu­ca­tion and social level, as com­pared to those women who did fol­low the diet,” said first author Sílvia Fer­nán­dez, researcher at the Barcelona Insti­tute of Global Health.

“These results sup­port the hypoth­e­sis that a healthy diet dur­ing preg­nancy can have a ben­e­fi­cial effect for child devel­op­ment,” con­cluded the study coor­di­na­tor Dora Roma­guera. She added that this may be due to ​“pos­si­ble epi­ge­netic mod­i­fi­ca­tions that reg­u­late fetal carid­iome­tab­o­lism, or shared eat­ing pat­terns between moth­ers and chil­dren, although this deserves fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion.”

No cor­re­la­tion was found between con­sump­tion of the Med­Diet dur­ing preg­nancy and lower car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk in early child­hood. ​“The effects on car­diometa­bolic risk could appear later in child­hood,” explained Fer­nán­dez.

In an inter­view with Olive Oil Times, Fer­nán­dez spec­u­lated on the fac­tors in the Med­Diet that may be respon­si­ble for the weight-related ben­e­fit.

“The Med­Diet rep­re­sents a healthy eat­ing pat­tern, and its advan­tage for child devel­op­ment may be due to a com­bi­na­tion of dif­fer­ent fac­tors,” she said. ​“We do not know the spe­cific under­ly­ing rea­sons, and more research is needed on this topic. The con­tent of fiber due to the high intake of plant foods may play a role. Another ben­e­fi­cial influ­ence is likely the high qual­ity of fat from olive oil, fish and nuts. More­over, adher­ence to this pat­tern decreases the con­sump­tion of unhealthy foods such as refined foods and sodas.”

The study was pub­lished in The Jour­nal of Pedi­atrics.

• The Jour­nal of Pedi­atrics


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