Diabetes during pregnancy could be predicted

The first trimester of pregnancy could be the time for doctors to predict whether women will develop diabetes later on in life . Identifying women early on in pregnancy could allow doctors more time to act on the findings and seek better outcomes.
Diabetes during pregnancy, also known as gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), affects approximately 4 per cent of women. An incidence of GDM can be damaging for the mother, making pregnancy more difficult and sometimes affecting the unborn baby. Babies of mothers who have GDM are often abnormally large.
At this stage, GDM is diagnosed in the third trimester by taking a blood sugar test requiring patients to fast. Experts at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston carried out the study . The study author, Dr. Ravi Thadhani, said: “GDM could be predicted in the first trimester, then there might be time for interventions that would have a beneficial impact.”
The team assessed blood levels of a protein called sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG). According to them: “SHBG has been shown to be a good predictor of…diabetes. So we decided to see if it was also useful during pregnancy.”