Role of nutrition in the prevention of toxemia.

Toxemia of pregnancy is called the disease of theories because, over decades of research, numerous causes have been proposed but none proved. Although many nutritional factors have been suggested as playing a causal role in the etiology of toxemia, mortality from this disease has not varied over time or between circumstances as one would expect a nutritional disease to do. This does not mean that there is no nutritional influence, but it does mean that the available evidence does not show that nutrition makes a major difference in maternal mortality from toxemia of pregnancy.