- NEW YORK (Reuters Health)
- Women who eat lots of foods that tend to make blood sugar soar may be
more likely to have a baby with birth defects of the brain or spine, a
new study suggests.
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- These foods, known as high glycemic index foods, include
white bread and other highly processed grains, potatoes and soft drinks.
Researchers say the finding, seen predominantly among obese women in the
study, adds to evidence that a problem in blood-sugar control might be
involved in neural tube defects.
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- But they also caution that the research is only one step
in understanding how the birth defects arise, and it's unclear whether
the foods, per se, are the culprit. "These are new results that need
to be repeated and pushed further," study leader Dr. Gary M. Shaw,
of the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program in Berkeley, told Reuters
Health.
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- Neural tube defects such as spina bifida arise in the
first several weeks of pregnancy, when the brain and spine are beginning
to take shape. One nutritional factor in this early period--a woman's intake
of the B vitamin folic acid--is known to affect the risk of these birth
defects.
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- There is also evidence that a mother's obesity or diabetes
might raise the risk of neural tube defects, suggesting a role for maternal
blood sugar levels.
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- Among more than 900 California women in the new study,
those who ate more foods with a high glycemic index around the time of
conception had a higher risk of having a baby with a neural tube defect.
The link was strongest for obese women; those who ate the most high glycemic
index foods had four times the risk of having an affected baby as obese
women who ate the fewest.
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- The findings are published in the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition.
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- The glycemic index measures how strongly and quickly
blood sugar rises after a person eats carbohydrate-containing food. The
sugars in foods with a high index are quickly digested and absorbed, creating
a surge in blood sugar levels. In contrast, the carbohydrates in foods
like fiber-rich whole grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, and some dairy
products typically cause a slower release of sugar into the blood.
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- According to Shaw and his colleagues, the new findings
are in line with evidence suggesting that problems in blood-sugar control
may contribute to the development of the birth defects.
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- But Shaw pointed out that researchers still don't fully
understand the roots of neural tube defects, and said it is studies like
this one that "provide the puzzle pieces one by one to assemble the
causal picture."
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- He also stressed that eating a balanced diet with enough
folic acid remains the best advice for cutting the risk of neural tube
defects. Foods rich in the vitamin include fortified grains and breakfast
cereals, leafy greens like spinach, and orange juice.
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- SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition November
1, 2003.
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