Women who eat just one baked potato a week are a fifth more likely to suffer diabetes during pregnancy, a major study has found.
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They argue that this is because starch in potatoes can trigger a sharp rise in blood sugar levels.
Potatoes are the 3rd most common food on Earth, right behind rice and wheat.
The BMJ study linked high potato consumption to a higher diabetes risk.
The solution? Eat other vegetables and legumes – a family including beans, peas and lentils – instead of starchy spuds, the authors recommend.
Dr Louis Levy, of Public Health England, said: ‘Our advice remains the same: base meals around a variety of starchy foods, including potatoes with the skin on, and choose wholegrain varieties where possible’.
There is no official limit on how much carbohydrate people should consume each week. The latter get broken down inside the patient’s system and raise blood sugar levels by a rather hefty amount. “They are lower on the glycemic index and have higher levels of healthful nutrients and minerals and micronutrients”, she told CBS News.
Others – low GI foods – release them more steadily. The key message from the research should be about varying the diet.
According to the researchers, pregnancy puts extra demands on the body, and some women develop diabetes at this time. The disorder can lead to future health problems for mother and child.
The researchers uncovered the potentially unsafe association by analyzing the dietary patterns of women who became pregnant while participating in the Nurses’ Health Study II. They also tracked pregnancies.
What is gestational diabetes mellitus? Every four years, participants filled out a questionnaire on foods they had eaten during the previous year.
Of 21,693 single-foetus pregnancies, 854 – some four per cent – developed gestational diabetes, according to the study published in the British Medical Journal.
Should women planning a pregnancy lay off the french fries and mashed potatoes? It’s all up to you if you want to keep eating potatoes before becoming pregnant or not even if you would be subjecting yourself to an alleged increase in risk.
They also found that substituting 2 servings of potatoes a week with other vegetables, legumes, or whole grain foods was associated with a 9% to 12% lower risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy. She said: “We can not draw definitive conclusions from this research nor apply the findings to everyone”.
“Type 2 diabetes can be prevented, so it is important to take steps to reduce your risk”.
But UK experts stressed there was not enough evidence to warn women off eating lots of potatoes.
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The authors cautioned, however, that because their study was not created to prove cause and effect, their results do not prove conclusively that potato consumption directly leads to gestational diabetes.
