Why you, ask? These dietary changes are important for enhancing the likelihood of a healthy baby and may also have an impact on the health of the child throughout his or her lifetime. And in the future, we might have to add gluten to the list of foods to avoid during pregnancy. In 2016, she published a study on diabetic mice that typically produce diabetic offspring. She noted that if, during pregnancy, these mice ate a gluten-containing diet, about 62 percent of their offspring would be diabetic. On the other hand, on a gluten-free diet, the incidence of type I diabetes was reduced remarkably, down to 8 percent. We’ve known for a while that the intake of gluten does play a role in how type-1 diabetes manifests, by affecting the regulation of the immune system, and this understanding supported the design of her research. The findings were quite compelling. When comparing mothers with the highest gluten intake versus those with the lowest, risk for developing type-1 diabetes in their children was increased twofold. Interestingly, the risk of type I diabetes in offspring increased proportionally with the amount of gluten mothers consumed during their pregnancy. We are hearing more and more about why gluten is threatening to our health. Clearly, over the past five years, the issues associated with gluten exposure have extended well beyond the gut and may involve the immune system, the brain, and as we now see, the risk for type-1 diabetes. This is just one of the many reasons why I wrote a completely revised and updated version of Grain Brain (available later this month). As we learn more about the common manifestations of gluten sensitivity (that are quite apart from having actual celiac disease) reducing gluten during pregnancy may prove beneficial in more ways than just preventing diabetes in their children. It might even provide relief from common symptoms that have just en ascribed to “being pregnant” like gastrointestinal distress, mood changes, and even headaches. This could mean huge relief for many women an an increased quality of life while pregnant. More research needs to be done before this becomes a mainstream recommendation for pregnant mothers—and it’s important to know that only about 0.24 percent of Americans under the age of 20 have diagnosed diabetes, so this is a fairly limited population of people that this could be affecting. That said, the information we can take from this new study indicates that there is a relationship between how much gluten a mother consumes during pregnancy and risk for type-1 diabetes in her offspring. I feel confident and supported in adding to the list of important nutritional considerations during pregnancy the idea that women do their very best to limit, as much as possible, their consumption of gluten.
