Gestational diabetes is a cardiovascular disease risk factor

A study indicates that only having a gestational diabetes history raises the risk of developing subclinical atherosclerosis before type 2 diabetes are developed or metabolic syndrome in a woman.

Pregnant women can face an increased risk of early heart disease when they develop gestational diabetes, according to a study that is published in "Journal of the American Heart Association."

Gestational diabetes, which develops only during pregnancy and generally disappears after pregnancy, increases the risk that the mother develops diabetes later.This ailment is treated with meal planning, physical activity and sometimes insulin or other medications.

In this 20 -year study, researchers found that a history of gestational diabetes can also be a risk factor for early atherosclerosis in women during median age before diabetes and metabolic diseases appear.

"Our research shows that only having a history of gestational diabetes raises the risk of developing subclinical atherosclerosis before type 2 diabetes are developed or metabolic syndrome in a woman," says Erica P. Guinderson, main author of the study and scientific in the divisionof Kaiser Permanent research, in Oakland, in the US.

At the beginning of the study, the researchers measured the risk factors for heart disease before pregnancy of 898 women, from 18 to 30 years of age, who later had one or more births.

The women were tested periodically for diabetes and metabolic diseases before and after their gestation throughout the period of 20 years.The thickness of the carotid artery wall was measured on average 12 years after pregnancy, when women were between 38 and 50 years of age.

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The study analyzed age, race, births and body mass index (BMI) before pregnancy and fasting blood glucose, insulin, lipids and blood pressure.The participants divided into women who developed gestational diabetes and those who did not, with 119 of them (13 percent) who developed gestational diabetes (7.6 per 100 births).The thickness of the carotid artery serves to measure the subclinical atherosclerosis and predicts a heart attack or a stroke in women, so the researchers used ultrasound image analysis of the carotid artery, making four measurements of the wall thickness.

During the 20 years of monitoring, scientists detected a medium thickness greater than 0.023 mm in the intimate-media of the carotid artery in those who had gestational diabetes compared to those women who did not develop the disease and the difference was not attributed to obesityor the climb of glucose before pregnancy.«This discovery indicates that the background of gestational diabetes can influence the development of atherosclerosis before the appearance of diabetes and metabolic diseases that have previously been linked to heart disease,” says Guinderson.Gestational diabetes can be an early risk factor of heart disease in women, ”.At the close of the study, 13 women experienced cardiovascular events, one of them in the Gestational Diabetes Group.

According to Guinderson, it is important to recognize the reproductive characteristics that can contribute to the risk of disease in women: "It is a change in thinking about how to identify a risk subgroup for early atherosclerosis."

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