According to a new study conducted in Copenhagen, children’s cognitive development can be harmed regardless of whether their biological parents have type 1 diabetes.
Anne Laerke Spangmose and colleagues from Copenhagen University Hospital in Denmark published their findings in the open-access journal ‘PLOS Medicine.’
For the first time, study suggests that having a parent with a chronic disease such as type 1 diabetes is linked to lower school achievement rather than maternal high blood sugar during foetal development.
The impact of maternal diabetes during pregnancy on their children’s cognition has been extensively studied. Hyperglycemia can damage foetal development, particularly the baby’s brain, because glucose crosses the placenta and maternal high blood sugar. There is minimal research on the effects of having a parent with type 1 diabetes on different diabetes subtypes.
Anne Laerke Spangmose and colleagues collected information from Danish registrations as well as test results in arithmetic and reading for grades two, four, six, and eight. Over a seven-year span, the team included 622,073 youngsters aged 6 to 18 who attended public schools.
