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(NaturalNews) Why do pregnant women crave foods? Ask nutritionists this question, and they'll probably tell you that it's the body's way of telling the mother that it's "craving" a particular vitamin or nutrient. While this explanation certainly sounds reasonable, it loses its reasonableness when you consider the fact that cravings, for the overwhelming majority of pregnant women, are nutritional nightmares, including indulgences in the likes of pickles, cheese whiz sandwiches and root beer floats. If the body were really craving nutrient-rich foods, expectant mothers would be pining for potatoes for potassium, spinach for iron and olives for fat, for instance. It's too bad these aren't the more common cravings, because not only would moms do a world of good for their own bodies, but they'd be helping their babies reduce their risk for developing type I diabetes.

Researchers from Sahlgrenska University in Sweden discovered this after conducting a series of blood tests on approximately 6,000 five-year-old boys and girls. In the process of analyzing their blood samples, they found a striking similarity among the samples when compared to the food frequency questionnaires that their mothers filled out.

Prior to the study, the mothers jotted down what foods they often ate during their pregnancies, with a specific emphasis on whether or not vegetables were a part of their diet. They found that those women who rarely to never ate vegetables often had kids whose blood samples were high in antibodies that are often indicative of type I diabetes development. In fact, these blood samples were more than twice as likely to be high in these antibodies compared to the blood samples of kids with moms who were steadfast in their vegetable consumption.

The study is published in the journal Pediatric Diabetes.

At least recently, most of the health world has focused on the increase of type II diabetes among adults and children, but type I diabetes diagnoses remains high. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately 13,000 boys and girls develop type I diabetes every year.

Type I diabetes is characterized by the pancreas' inability to produce enough insulin to convert sugar into energy for the cells. There is no known cure for type I diabetes, but it can be effectively treated by living a healthy lifestyle, namely, eating right and exercising regularly. Common symptoms associated with type I diabetes include frequent urination, excessive thirst, unexplained weight loss, low energy levels and worsening eyesight (e.g. objects becoming blurry).

Though there's little evidence to suggest a pregnant woman's cravings are indicative of a nutrient deficiency, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that pregnant women need to be taking in more nutrients than they would otherwise. These "prenatal vitamins," as they're called, include folic acid (to decrease the risk of birth defects), calcium (to offset the amount of calcium a growing fetus absorbs for its own development) and iron (to support the red blood cells' ability to carry oxygen to the cells). Spinach is the gold standard for all of these nutrients (262 mcg of folic acid, 6.4 mg of iron and 245 mg of calcium per cup), but others that medal include asparagus for folic acid (five spears=110 mcg), swiss chard for iron (1 cup=4 mg) and kale for calcium (1 cup=94 mg).

Sources:

http://www.babycenter.com/0_food-cr...
http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/ty...
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/...
http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/project...
http://www.webmd.com/baby/guide/pre...
http://www.livestrong.com/article/2...

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