Prevalence of glucose intolerance and metabolic syndrome within one year following delivery of a pregnancy complicated by gestational diabetes

• Published in: Contraception and reproductive medicine Vol. 3; no. 1; p. 27
• Main Authors: Sodhi, Neetu K, Nelson, Anita L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central 23.11.2018; BMC
• Subjects: Body mass index; Cardiovascular risk factors; Gestational diabetes; Glucose; Health risk assessment; Longitudinal screening; Metabolic syndrome; Practice guidelines; Womens health; California; Practice guidelines; Longitudinal screening; Gestational diabetes; Metabolic syndrome; Cardiovascular risk factors
• ISSN: 2055-7426; 2055-7426
• DOI: 10.1186/s40834-018-0080-y

Women with a history of gestational diabetes (GDM) are at risk for development of both overt Type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) at higher rates and at earlier ages than control women. Current guidelines recommend longitudinal testing of glucose tolerance for women with prior GDM, but no formal assessments of cardiovascular disease are suggested. This study estimated the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in women with GDM in recent pregnancy who were followed for at least 1 year postpartum to quantify their cardiovascular risks. This is a retrospective study of women who were diagnosed with GDM in a public hospital and followed for at least 1 year after delivery and who had tests performed at a minimum 4-12 weeks postpartum and 6 and 12 months postpartum. Primary outcomes were prevalence of glucose tolerance abnormalities and metabolic syndrome (MetS) defined by two prevailing sets of diagnostic criteria. One hundred fifty-one indigent, primarily Latina women who had been diagnosed in their last pregnancy with GDM comprised the study population. At the first visit postpartum, 4.7% were found to have overt diabetes and between 24 and 31% met the criteria for MetS. By the end of 12 months, another 14.5% were diagnosed with overt diabetes, and 38.5% had prediabetes. An additional 12-25% of the woman who had not had MetS at baseline developed MetS by the end of the 1-year follow-up. Given the high prevalence of MetS among women with recent history of GDM immediately postpartum and its rapid development in the following year, further research is needed to enable the development of practice guidelines that will define appropriate short and long-term evaluations needed to assess risk for cardiovascular disease in these women.