Sydney: Women who eat tuberous vegetables such as potatoes and turnips during pregnancy make their children more prone to developing diabetes later in life. The toxin bafilowyein, found in bacteria streptomyces, infects these kinds of vegetable and is, according to researchers, the root of all trouble.

They carried out experiments on mice and found that the pregnant mice, which were fed small amounts of toxin were more likely to give birth to babies, who later developed type-1 diabetes. But they were not sure why this happened, News.com reported on June 9.

It was found that if during pregnancy women ate foods that might have these toxins, it affected the development of the pancreas. So in genetically susceptible kids, it might then turn on type-1 diabetes.

The research was headed by Paul Zimmet, director of Melbourne's International Diabetes Institute, and Mark Myers of Monash University.

People living in areas where tuberous vegetables were widely eaten had high rates of diabetes, they said, adding that the highest rates of diabetes in the world are in Finland and Sardinia. While the Finns are very big potato eaters, the Sardinians are major consumers of sugar beet.

According to an estimate, around 13 per cent of the total potato produce in Australia was infected with the bacteria, which cannot be destroyed through cooking. These tuberous vegetables often entered the food chain indirectly, such as through food for livestock, the researchers concluded.

Official figures say around one lakh Australians and two million children worldwide have type-1 diabetes, which makes up 10 to 15 per cent of all diabetes cases.

ANI