Women with a history of gestational diabetes are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease regardless of whether they go on to develop type 2 diabetes, according to a new analysis published in the journal The BMJ.
Gestational diabetes — a form of diabetes that develops during pregnancy, and usually goes away after giving birth — has been on the rise in recent years. While there are likely to be many factors that contribute to gestational diabetes, recent research has pointed to the role of dietary patterns around the time of conception and early pregnancy. Other research has highlighted the role of the gut microbiome — bacteria and other organisms that live in the digestive tract — in the development of gestational diabetes. You may be able to help manage your gestational diabetes through dietary measures, as well as reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes later on by following certain lifestyle patterns.
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But the latest analysis suggests that preventing type 2 diabetes may not be enough to limit some of the harmful long-term health effects of gestational diabetes. Researchers included 15 previously published studies in their analysis, which involved 513,324 women with a history of gestational diabetes and more than 8 million women who never had gestational diabetes. During the combined follow-up period of all 15 studies, women with a history of gestational diabetes were 45% more likely to develop either cardiovascular disease (such as coronary artery disease) or cerebrovascular disease (such as a stroke). When these categories were examined individually, gestational diabetes was linked to a 72% higher risk for cardiovascular disease and a 40% higher risk for cerebrovascular disease.
Compared with women with no history of gestational diabetes, those with a prior history were 40% more likely to develop coronary artery disease (CAD), 74% more likely to have a heart attack, 62% more likely to develop heart failure, 127% more likely to develop angina (heart-related chest pain), 87% more likely to undergo a cardiovascular medical or surgical procedure, and 45% more likely to have a stroke.
When the researchers excluded participants who went on to develop type 2 diabetes from their analysis, they found that gestational diabetes was still linked to a 9% higher risk of developing cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease. Other factors were linked to both gestational diabetes and cardiovascular outcomes, though — including participants’ smoking status, body-mass index (BMI, a measure of body weight that takes height into account), socioeconomic factors (such as income and education level), and other health conditions. Due to these other factors, the researchers deemed the overall certainty of the link between gestational diabetes and later cardiovascular problems to be low.
Still, the researchers concluded that gestational diabetes “is associated with increased risks of overall and type-specific cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases that cannot be solely attributed to conventional cardiovascular risk factors or subsequent diabetes.” More research is needed to evaluate whether efforts to prevent, or effectively treat, gestational diabetes could also reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease later on.
Want to learn more about gestational diabetes? Read “Gestational Diabetes: Are You at Risk?,” “Treating Gestational Diabetes” and “What to Eat If You Have Gestational Diabetes.”
