by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Pregnancy

Consuming a lot of sugar while you?re pregnant could increase your child?s risk of developing allergies, a recent study suggests.
Researchers analyzed data on almost 9,000 moms and their children born during the early 1990s. They used food questionnaires the moms filled out during their pregnancies to calculate the amount of sugar the women consumed during that time. The authors, who published their findings in the European Respiratory Journal, included foods with added sugar such as cookies and cake, and also unsweetened fruit juice, honey and syrup (but not natural sugar found in whole fruit, vegetables or dairy products).
Next, the study authors examined whether the women?s children had been diagnosed with allergies at age 7 or later. They focused on allergies that cause breathing and skin reactions, such as allergies to dust mites, cats and grass.  
What they found was startling.
Kids whose moms consumed high amounts of sugar during pregnancy (between 16 and 69 teaspoons a day) were almost 40% more likely than kids of moms with low-sugar diets (under 7 teaspoons per day) to be diagnosed with at least one allergy. They were 73% more likely than kids in the low-sugar group to have two or more allergies.
Although there was no evidence that kids is the high-sugar group were at greater risk for asthma, they did have twice the risk of developing allergic asthma ? a type of condition where exposure to dust or other allergens ca...