• April 25, 2024

Women with obesity that get diabetes during pregnancy, and increase 5 kilos or more after giving birth, have a 40 times higher risk of sufferingtype 2 diabetes , according to a new study.

Diabetes that arises in pregnancy often disappears after the pregnancy . Supporting information from the new study indicated that up to a third of women with type 2 diabetes they had a history of gestational diabetes .

For its part, excess weight is a risk factor for both gestational diabetes as for the type 2 diabetes , the researchers say.

Our findings show the importance of maintaining a healthy body weight before and after pregnancy, "says the lead researcher Cuilin Zhang , senior scientist of the branch of epidemiology of National Institute of Child Health and Human Development .

A long process

Mitchell Roslin , chief of surgery for obesity Lenox Hill Hospital , in the city of New York, affirms that the type 2 diabetes it is not a sudden occurrence, but develops over time.

It's probably a 15-year process that starts with insulin resistance as the pancreas cells start to work worse. When a woman has gestational diabetes, that indicates that she is already on the way to diabetes, and even increasing a small amount of weight can make her cross the threshold, "he warns.

Roslin indicates that the most common patient she sees is a woman who gains weight during and after several pregnancies It becomes a vicious circle.

The only way for these women to avoid or delay the development of the type 2 diabetes is to lose weight and exercise, suggests Roslin. Exercise is very important, there is a strong link between it and the improvement with respect to resistance to insulin .

Convincing results

For the study, Zhang and her collaborators collected data from nearly 1,700 women who participated in the study. Study on women's health and diabetes, and that they developed gestational diabetes , between 1991 and 2001.

Researchers found that over 18 years of follow-up, 259 women contracted type 2 diabetes . And the risk grew 27% for every 5 kilos that a woman increased after contracting gestational diabetes , regardless of their weight prior to pregnancy .

But for women who already suffered obesity , when they developed gestational diabetes, increase 5kg. or more was associated with a 43 times higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes , compared to women of normal weight and who increased less than the weight indicated after having contracted the type of pregnancy diabetes .

The risk of contracting type 2 diabetes It persisted even after taking into account factors such as age, family history of diabetes, diet, physical activity, breastfeeding and the time that had passed since pregnancy, the study authors found.

Other recent research in the April issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology reported that almost half of pregnant women gain more weight than recommended during pregnancy.

This is a problem, because to increase too much of weight has consequences for the health so much for the mothers as for the babies ", warned the coauthor of the study, Andrea Sharma , epidemiologist of the Maternal and Child Health Branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) .

recommendations

During the pregnancy , women who have a normal weight at the beginning of the gestation should generally increase between 11.3 and 15.8 kg, according to the guidelines of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) .

Those that have a weight below normal when the pregnancy should try to win between 12.7 and 18.1 kg, and it is recommended that women who suffer obesity at the beginning of pregnancy do not increase more than 5 to 9 kg, indicates the IOM.

Part of the increased excess weight could result from misinterpretations, indicatesKaren Cooper , obstetrician and gynecologist and program director Be Well Moms of the Cleveland Clinic .

Most women feel that the pregnancy It is the moment when the weight does not matter and it is an opportunity to eat everything you want. Most believe the myth that weight will be lost quickly and easily after childbirth, Cooper reveals.

Video Medicine: NO CONTACT IS A LONG PROCESS (April 2024).