Eating pasta during pregnancy doubles risk of kids getting Type 1 diabetes as teens

A new study now finds that eating lots of gluten, like pasta, during pregnancy, doubles the risk of a child with Type 1 diabetes.

The study found that the more gluten women ate during pregnancy, the higher the chance that their child would develop the condition by the age of 16.

According to the story published in Mail Online, the researchers, from Denmark, Iceland and the US, stressed that they had not proved the link and that more studies were needed before women should alter their diets.

However, if confirmed, it would radically change the way medics think about Type 1 diabetes.

Unlike the Type 2 form of diabetes, Type 1 has nothing to do with lifestyle and is irreversible and until now, scientists have thought of Type 1 diabetes as an unavoidable condition that has more to do with genetics than any environmental factor.

The scientists, writing in the British Medical Journal, stressed that their findings are tentative.