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Gestational diabetes raises risk of type 2 diabetes Dr. Berglund's comments appear in green.
Developing diabetes while pregnant -- what doctors call gestational diabetes -- greatly increases a woman's risk of developing type 2 diabetes later on, a new study confirms.
"Because of the high level of risk for these women, both screening for type 2 diabetes and preventive measures should be taken," Dr. Denice Feig of the University of Toronto, who was involved in the study, told Reuters Health.
Detecting and treating type 2 diabetes is particularly crucial if a woman plans to become pregnant again, she added, because poorly controlled diabetes in pregnancy increases the risk of fetal malformations and stillbirth. Gestational diabetes is a known risk factor for type 2 diabetes. To gauge the exact degree of risk, Feig's team looked at 633,449 women who gave birth in Toronto between 1995 and 2002. A total of 21,823 (3.3 percent) of the women were diagnosed with gestational diabetes.
While just 2 percent of the women who didn't have gestational diabetes went on to develop type 2 diabetes during the 9-year follow-up period, 19 percent of those with gestational diabetes did, the researchers found. Moreover, they say the strongest risk factor for type 2 diabetes was gestational diabetes, which increased risk more than 37-fold.
Women who are diagnosed with gestational diabetes can help ward off type 2 diabetes by staying at a healthy weight and exercising, Feig noted. Taking these steps can also help to reduce the risk of developing gestational diabetes, the researcher added, but some factors in the development of diabetes in pregnancy aren't modifiable, such as a person's family history of diabetes.
Dr. Berglund's comments Wow. I wasn't thinking the risk would be 37 times more, but my clinical experience has confirmed this correlation for a while. The idea that sugar levels elevate in pregnancy is because the body is under physical stress and because the baby is stealing all of mom's nutrients. These combine to bring out a condition that the mom is already prone to. Think of it this way: wellness is a scale from perfect to dead. Each area of the body (immune system, sugar handling, liver detoxification, cardiac function, etc) is on a different scale. Some people are prone to some things, some are prone to other things. This mom to be was (before she was pregnant) on the "normal" side of this condition but maybe a few years or decades from manifesting other signs and symptoms associated with diabetes. Once she got pregnant, the baby started taking all her "extra" nutrients, leaving her deficient. This, along with the additional physical demands of being pregnant, pushed her over the line and caused her blood sugar to elevate or caused her to spill sugar into her urine. Once she gives birth and stops nursing, her carbohydrate handling ability returns. However, as she ages, if she doesn't change her eating habits, her nutritional status will continue to worsen until the carbohydrate handling is at a diabetes or pre-diabetes level.
The solution? Do you have a family history of diabetes mellitus or obesity? Find out what nutrients you need as a pregnant woman that contribute to carbohydrate handling (vanadium, chromium, thiamin, biotin, etc.) and watch your carbohydrate intake. You definitely need more protein (baby building blocks) than carbohydrates during pregnancy. I use a non-invasive method of testing (manual muscle testing) to determine nutritional status of my patients in the office.