Study Reveals That Pregnant Women Who Consume Nuts Are Likely to Birth Intelligent Children

A new research study has revealed that pregnant women who consume nuts are more likely to give birth to intelligent children.

This research study was made available by researchers from the Barcelona Institute of Global Health. They found out that attention span, working memory and cognitive functions are higher in children whose mothers ate more nuts during the first trimester of pregnancy.

Read Also: Save money by harnessing these amazing benefits of Chamomile oil

The pattern of study shows that the team took a survey at the diets of 2,200 pregnant women. Thereafter, it studied the brain development of their children after 18 months, five years and eight years.

An author of the Study, Florence Gignac said, “This is the first study to inquire the possible benefits of eating nuts during pregnancy for the child’s Nero-development in the long term”.

“The brain undergoes a series of simple processes during gestation. And this literally means that maternal nutrition is a determining factor in foetal brain development and can have long term effects”.

The nuts that were taken into account in the study were almonds, walnuts, pine nuts, hazelnuts and peanuts.

The researchers believe that the beneficial effects observed might be due to the fact that the nuts provide high level of folic acids. And they possess in particular, essential fatty acids such as omega-3 and omega-6 acids.

“These components tend to accumulate in neural tissue, especially in the frontal areas of the brain, which influence executive function and memory”.

During the period of analysis on the third trimester of the mothers’ nut consumption, it was revealed that either no link or weak links with improved neuropsychological development were found.

Researchers disclosed that this could be because the rhythm of foetal improvement varies throughout the pregnancy and there are periods when development is particularly sensitive to maternal diet.

Meanwhile, they added that, as this is the first study to inquire of this effect, the results must be treated with caution until more research is carried out.

This study was led by ISGlobal and the report, titled ‘Maternal Nut Intake in Pregnancy and Child Neuropsychological Development up To 8 Years Old: A Population based Cohort Study in Spain, published in the European Journal of Epidemiology’.