‘Diabetes risk to babies whose mums ate gluten’

EATING lots of gluten in pregnancy doubles the risk of having a child with Type 1 diabetes, research suggests.

A study of 63,500 women found that the more gluten the women ate during their pregnancies, the higher the chance that their child would develop the condition by the age of 16.

The researchers, from Denmark, Iceland and the US, stressed that they had not proved the link and that more studies were needed before women should be advised to alter their diets.

But if confirmed, it would radically change the way medics think about type 1 diabetes.

The autoimmune disease results in the body being unable to produce its own insulin, stopping proper regulation of blood sugar.

Type 1 diabetes affects approximately 33,000 people in Ireland – and usually strikes first in childhood or adolescence. Those with it have to inject insulin several times a day to stay alive.

Unlike the type 2 form of diabetes, type 1 has nothing to do with lifestyle and is irreversible.

Until now scientists have thought of type 1 diabetes as an unavoidable condition that has more to do with genetics than any environmental factor.

So the idea that a mother’s behaviour may contribute to its development is controversial.

The scientists, writing in the British Medical Journal, stressed that their findings are tentative.

The team, led by the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, said: ‘The safety of substituting gluten-containing foods for other foods... should be investigated as well as the possibility of obtaining a larger effect by adherence to a completely gluten-free diet.’

Gluten is found in wheat, rye and barley and gives food a chewy texture and elasticity during the baking process. The scientists are not sure why this would trigger type 1 diabetes, but believe gluten may provoke inflammation in the metabolic system.

They stressed that the results – which included women across Denmark – were modest.

The 10% of women who consumed the most gluten – about 20g a day, the equivalent of 13 slices of bread – were twice as likely to have a child with type 1 diabetes compared with the 10% who ate the least, about 7g.

The absolute risks, however, remained small, with only 0.52% of women with the highest consumption having a child with type 1 diabetes.

Lucy Trelfa, the research communications officer at Diabetes UK, said: ‘Finding a link between eating more gluten during pregnancy and a higher risk of type 1 diabetes in babies is interesting.

‘But importantly, this research does not show that gluten causes type 1 diabetes.’

She added: ‘Scientists are looking at a range of factors in our genes and our environment, like gluten, that might increase the risk of developing type 1 diabetes. But how those factors work together, and their individual importance, is still unclear.

‘At this stage, pregnant women don’t need to make any lifestyle changes based on this research.’

Stressed the link has not been proved