Inadequate diet during pregnancy predisposes baby to diabetes
Maternal diet quality
during pregnancy is fundamental to foetal growth as well as insulin and glucose
levels at birth, a new study has concluded.
Increased insulin and
glucose levels are indicators of diabetes and metabolic syndrome risk.
Previous studies have
already outlined that when the mother does not consume enough food during
pregnancy, the glucose supply to other tissues is reduced in the foetus to
ensure that the brain receives the correct amount. In turn, this causes reduced
foetal growth. This adaptive mechanism is known as Barker’s thrifty phenotype
hypothesis.
“However, the effects
of an imbalance between fats, proteins and carbohydrates are not as well-known.
In others words, the effect during pregnancy of Western diets that vary greatly
from the Mediterranean variety are not well-known,” Francisco J. Sanchez-Muniz,
researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid and one of the authors of
the study, explained to SINC.
The new study forms
part of the Estudio Merida, a macro investigation that analyses different
parameters in newborns and their mothers. In this way, the new study reveals
that when pregnant women ingest adequate energy quantities, their children are
born at a normal weight of around 3.3 kilograms to 3.5 kilograms.
“Nonetheless, more than
half of women have low quality diets that include a high amount of animal
products rich in saturated fats yet a low amount of carbohydrates from
vegetables and pulses. Furthermore, more than a third of women displayed eating
habits that differ greatly from the Mediterranean diet,” noted Sanchez-Muniz.
“It is surprising that
women do not change their eating habits or diet quality during pregnancy,” he
said.
The experts stated that
when a woman does not eat properly during pregnancy, the child is born with a
diabetogenic profile, meaning high levels of serum glucose and insulin and a
marker of insulin resistance. This confirms the influence of the diet on foetal
pancreas development and glucose and insulin concentration at birth.
“It is vital to make
mothers aware of the importance of eating well during pregnancy with a balanced
Mediterranean diet,” the researcher said.
“We must also push for
studies amongst the same population group in order to understand how children
will develop over time and thus avoid, or at least mitigate, the development of
high prevalence diseases within our society,” they concluded.
The finding was
published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Global battle against malaria stalls as financing takes backseat
Global funding for the
fight against malaria has stalled in the past two years, threatening to reverse
what the World Health Organisation (WHO) says are "remarkable recent
gains" in the battle to control one of the world's leading infectious killers.
After rapid expansion between 2004 and 2009, funding for malaria prevention and
control levelled off between 2010 and 2012 — meaning there were fewer
life-saving steps taken in hard- hit malarial regions such as sub-Saharan
Africa.
The WHO's World Malaria
Report, published on Monday, found the number of long-lasting
insecticide-treated mosquito nets delivered to endemic countries in sub-Saharan
Africa dropped from 145 million in 2010 to an estimated 66 million in 2012.
"This means that many households will be unable to replace existing bed
nets when required, exposing more people to the potentially deadly
disease," it said.
Malaria is caused by a
parasite carried in the saliva of mosquitoes and kills hundreds of thousands of
people a year, mainly babies and children under the age of five in Africa.
According to WHO data, the disease infected around 219 million people in 2010,
killing around 660,000 of them.
Robust figures are,
however, hard to establish and other health experts say the annual malaria
death toll could be double that. An estimated $5.1 billion a year is needed
between 2011 and 2020 to get malaria medicines, prevention measures and tests
to all those who need then in the 99 countries which have on-going transmission
of the disease. The WHO says that while many countries have increased financing
for malaria, the total available global funding remained at $2.3 billion in
2011 - less than half of what is needed.
"Global targets
for reducing the malaria burden will not be reached unless progress is accelerated
in the highest burden countries," Robert Newman, director of the WHO
Global Malaria Programme, said in statement with the report. "These
countries are in a precarious situation and most of them need urgent financial
assistance to procure and distribute life-saving commodities."
The WHO report found
that by far the greatest impact of malaria is concentrated in 14 endemic
countries which account for an estimated 80% of malaria deaths. Nigeria and the
Democratic Republic of the Congo are the most affected countries in sub-Saharan
Africa, while India is the hardest hit in South East Asia. WHO director general
Margaret Chan wrote in a forward to the report that there is now an urgent need
to identify new sources of funding to boost and sustain malaria control.
"We also need to
examine new ways to make existing funds stretch further by increasing the value
for money of malaria commodities and the efficiency of service delivery,"
she said. The Roll Back Malaria Partnership, which includes the WHO, Unicef and
the World Bank, said it was already exploring several options, including
financial transaction taxes, airline ticket taxes and a potential "malaria
bond" to encourage more involvement from private sector investors.
We
must do the best we can with what we have
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