Women at greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes late in life after pregnancy: Montreal study

Women who suffer from gestational diabetes during pregnancy have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes afterwards, according to a study published Thursday by the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC).

While the association between gestational diabetes and a subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes is well known, this is one of the first times that scientists have decided to measure it more precisely.

Dr. Kaberi Dasgupta and her colleagues found that, compared with women who had never suffered from gestational diabetes, those who did suffer from it during their first pregnancy were over four times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes.

The risk was 7.5 times greater for women who suffered from gestational diabetes during their second pregnancy, and sixteen times greater for those who suffered from it during both pregnancies.

“It has been shown that if you have gestational diabetes in your first pregnancy, you have an increased risk, but it’s less for women who developed gestational diabetes for the first time in their second pregnancy,” said Dr. Dasgupta. “And the greatest risk is for women who had gestational diabetes during both pregnancies.”

Dr. Dasgupta and her team used data from Quebec’s administrative health registries and birth and death registries to create a study group of 431,980 women with two births between 1990 and 2012 who did not have diabetes before or between their pregnancies. The researchers then wanted to know whether they had developed diabetes before 2019.

Apart from the increased risk of type 2 diabetes, their results suggest that women who developed gestational diabetes during their first pregnancy, but not during their second, may have changed their lifestyle habits – diet, physical activity, etc.

According to the study, the appearance of gestational diabetes during the second pregnancy, but not the first, could reflect a deterioration in the woman’s health. This could also explain why the risk of type 2 diabetes is higher after the second pregnancy than after the first.

“In women who have had two bouts of gestational diabetes, we certainly need to act quickly, but it’s not easy for everyone (to change lifestyle habits), especially in mothers and women who have all these responsibilities,” said Dr. Dasgupta.

Dr. Dasgupta added that it’s important to set up support programs to accompany these women, since many of them will be motivated to look after their health, to be able care for their children in the long term by avoiding the serious consequences that type 2 diabetes can bring.

“The idea will really be to personalize care and not to think that all women with gestational diabetes are the same. There are differences between them, and you really have to think about that,” concluded Dr. Dasgupta.

It is estimated that around 10 per cent of pregnancies will be affected by gestational diabetes.

The findings of this study were published by the medical journal JAMA Network Open.

–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews