LONDON (Reuters) – Pregnant women who eat nuts or nut products like peanut butter daily raise the risk their children will develop asthma by 50 percent, Dutch researchers said on Tuesday.
The study also showed that moderate amounts did not seem to have an effect, meaning it is too soon to say whether pregnant women should give up nuts because they contain many important nutrients and healthy fats a developing fetus needs, they said.
“We were the first to find these strong effects on asthma symptoms,” said Saskia Willers, an epidemiologist at Utrecht University, who led the study linking nuts with asthma.
“But until we are certain we don’t want to restrict them from the diet. So it is important that other studies replicate the findings,” she said.