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Diabetic mom puts baby at risk
Health-24
2008-07-28
Babies who are exposed to mom's diabetes and obesity while in the womb are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in adolescence, according to new research. To prevent youth-onset type 2 diabetes, we may need to take a life course approach, targeting, in addition to childhood obesity, the increasing number of women with pregnancies complicated by obesity and diabetes, researchers conclude.
Dr Dana Dabelea at the
University
of
Colorado Denver
and co-investigators studied 79 youths who were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes
before their 20th birthday and 190 non-diabetic control youths. They found that
far more diabetic youth than non-diabetic youth were exposed to mom's diabetes
in the womb (roughly 30 percent versus 6 percent). The same was true for
overweight and obesity, with 57 percent of diabetic youth versus 27 percent of
non-diabetic youth being exposed to maternal overweight/obesity.
Diabetes risk increases 7-fold
The adjusted odds for type 2 diabetes was roughly 7-fold
higher with exposure to maternal diabetes and more than 3-fold higher with
exposure to maternal overweight/obesity. Dabelea and colleagues estimate that 47
percent of youth-onset type 2 diabetes can be attributed to prenatal (before
birth) exposure to maternal diabetes and obesity. Moreover, the odds for
type 2 diabetes was 2.5-fold higher when the diabetes was diagnosed before
versus after pregnancy, Dabelea's team reports in the journal Diabetes
Care. This finding suggests that even in the selected group of offspring
at high genetic risk, exposure to diabetes in utero is associated with a further
increase in type 2 diabetes risk. The association between offspring
diabetes and maternal obesity was attenuated after accounting for childhood BMI,
indicating, the researchers say, that maternal obesity increases the probability
of childhood obesity, which in turn heightens the risk of diabetes.
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