Findings from Born in Bradford – one of the biggest medical research studies undertaken in the UK – will be aired on national radio this Friday.

Listeners tuning in to BBC Radio 4 at 11am will hear how the study, following 14,000 babies and their families since 2007, has discovered babies in Bradford have the highest levels of acrylamide, which is linked to health problems including delayed brain development, diabetes and heart disease in adulthood.

The acrylamide comes from consuming too many chips and crisps in a bad diet. The potentially toxic chemical causes lower birth weights and smaller head circumference, according to an international study led by the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology in Barcelona.

The project studied the diet of 1,100 pregnant women and newborns from Denmark, England (represented by Bradford), Greece, Norway and Spain.

Professor John Wright, a clinical epidemiologist at the Bradford Institute for Health Research, said: “Our study provides the most definitive scientific evidence yet that eating foods high in acrylamide during the critical pregnancy period can affect foetal health. The level found in the Bradford babies was twice the level of the Danish babies, for instance.

“Pregnant women need to be given more information about the risk from acrylamide and the food industry must also explore effective ways of reducing acrylamide levels in its products.”

Born in Bradford grew out of the high infant mortality rate in the city – the second highest in the country.

The study has also identified a number of other health conditions which are not seen elsewhere, with more than 150 of them identified by paediatricians and community teams.

To try and understand some of these rare conditions, researchers have been tracing the genetic history of new parents and looking at the part played by cousin marriages, which account for three quarters of marriages among Pakistanis in the city.

The Born in Bradford team is now on the brink of providing the most detailed calculation of the actual risks involved in cousin marriage.