 News
3rd April 2006
Low carb diets can stress baby
Popular high protein, low carbohydrate diets should be avoided
during pregnancy as they can lead to more stressed children.
A team of UK researchers followed 82 children born in the late sixties
whose mothers had been advised to eat a pound of red meat a day during
pregnancy.
Dr Rebecca Reynolds, who led the study, said that the women had originally
been advised by an obstetrician to eat very high levels of meat and low
levels of carbohydrate to avoid a condition called pre-eclampsia associated
with high blood pressure in pregnancy.
The study found the more meat the mother ate, the higher the levels of
stress hormone cortisol in the child.
The study, carried out by the Universities of Edinburgh and Southampton,
asked the subjects, all of whom are now in their thirties, to perform
a series of stressful tasks including public speaking and mental arithmetic.
Their blood pressure levels were recorded and cortisol levels were measured
before and after each task.
"We are very interested in foetal programming which says how we are born
as a baby sets us up for future health," said Dr Reynolds.
"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."
But she added, "Given the recent popularity of low-carbohydrate/high
protein diets, such as the Atkins diet, this data also suggests that these
diets should be avoided during pregnancy."
Dr Doris Campbell, reader in obstetrics and gynaecology at Aberdeen University,
said it was probably not a good idea to mess around with diet during pregnancy.
"These sorts of high protein, low carbohydrate diets are not particularly
healthy in general, but I certainly would not advocate them in pregnancy,"
she said.
The research is being presented at the European Congress of Endocrinology
in Glasgow on Tuesday.
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