Mediterranean Diet Lowers The Risk Of Gestational Diabetes

Mediterranean Diet Lowers The Risk Of Gestational Diabetes
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There have been made many attempts to find the best way to lower the risk of gestational diabetes in women, and a recent study might have discovered a method. For a long time, people and scientists alike have praised the Mediterranean diet as being healthy for us. Lately, the Mediterranean diet is said to help women with gestational diabetes better than any other diet.

How efficient is the Mediterranean diet?

A team of researchers had studied over 1,200 women who suffered from obesity, high blood pressure, and/or high cholesterol before they got pregnant. These three conditions, obesity, hypertension, and high cholesterol are the main ingredients that enhance the risk of gestational diabetes while pregnant.

During the experiment, half of the women were designated to switch to the Mediterranean diet, while the other half did not change their eating habits. The Mediterranean diet consists of consuming nuts, extra virgin olive oil, many fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. Sugary foods and red and processed meat have been consumed in very low quantities. All women took folic acid and vitamin D supplements for the health of the fetus.

Mediterranean diet helps to lower the risk of gestational diabetes

The results showed that the women that switched to the new diet had a 35% lower risk of gestational diabetes in comparison with the women that continued to eat normally. Also, the Mediterranean diet helped women gain less weight: 6.8 kg (15 pounds) versus 8.3 kg (18 pounds).

Another benefit of the Mediterranean diet is that is can lower the risk of type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in all people, not only pregnant women.

The main aim of the study was to see how efficient this diet would be in case of preeclampsia, stillbirth, how the fetus developed and if it was in the normal parameters for its gestational age and whether the baby needed neonatal intensive care. While the results of the study did not show a significant change for these conditions, it is clear that the Mediterranean diet is a healthy alternative to other diets.


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Jeffrey likes to write about health and fitness topics, being a champion fitness instructor in the past.

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