Gestational diabetes articles from across Nature Portfolio

Takele et al. conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of intervention characteristics on preventing gestational diabetes. Group or healthcare facility-based physical activity interventions are found to be more effective in preventing gestational diabetes than community-based interventions.

Using plasma samples collected over several time points during pregnancy from three different cohorts, associations between circulating placental IGFBP1 levels, metabolic traits and birth anthropometric measurements were measured, with low IGFBP1 levels identified as a potential risk factor for gestational diabetes mellitus.

In a large multinational cohort study, maternal, gestational or pregestational diabetes was associated with only a small-to-moderate risk of ADHD in offspring, contrary to previous estimates that showed stronger effect sizes, attributing the differences in findings to confounding by shared genetic and familial factors.

Gestational diabetes is a complex metabolic condition thought to have a strong genetic predisposition. A large genome-wide association study of participants from Finland sheds light on the genetic contributors, opening avenues for research into mechanisms that underlie glucose regulation in pregnancy to improve the health of mothers and babies.

A randomized controlled trial demonstrates that using lower glycaemic criteria for diagnosing and treating gestational diabetes mellitus than currently used increases disease prevalence but does not reduce the risk of large-for-gestational-age infants across a population. However, individuals with mild hyperglycaemia who would otherwise remain undiagnosed experienced important health benefits from treatment.