Pregnant women who develop gestational diabetes (GDM) are likely to pass the disease on to their babies, according to a new study.
Obese children were examined to determine their risk of developing impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) after exposure to their mother's diabetes in the womb.
The researchers took 255 obese adolescents with normal glucose tolerance and gave them a glucose tolerance test. The test was repeated again three years after the initial test, according to a press release from Diabetologia, the source where the study was published.
Out of the 255 children tested, the test showed that 82 percent of them were exposed to their mother's diabetes. The children with exposure and children without exposure were separated in two groups.
"Exposure to GDM was the most significant predictor of developing IGT or type 2 diabetes, with an increased risk of almost six times for those children exposed to GDM in the womb," the authors said.
Over nine percent of women develop GDM during pregnancy due to their raging hormones that can interfere with insulin in the body, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"We strongly suggest that, among obese children and adolescents exposed to GDM, specifically if additional risk factors are present -- such as severe obesity or being of ethnicity minorities at higher risk -- oral glucose tolerance tests should be performed at baseline (specifically in mid-pubertal adolescents) and potentially repeated based on clinical judgment," the researchers told Science Daily.
