Racial Disparities in the Association Between Gestational Diabetes Mellitus and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Journal of Women's Health, 05/17/2012

Wang Y et al. – A history of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is a strong predictor of subsequent type 2 diabetes among Louisiana women, especially among African American women.

• Authors studied 1,142 women with a history of GDM and 18,856 women without a history of GDM aged 13–50 years with their first record of pregnancy in Louisiana State University Hospital–Based Longitudinal Study database between 1990 and 2009.
• History of GDM was used to predict incident type 2 diabetes.

• During a mean follow–up of 8.6 years, 1,394 women developed type 2 diabetes.
• The multivariable adjusted hazard ratio (HR) of type 2 diabetes was 6.52 (95% confidence interval [CI] 5.73–7.43) among women with GDM compared to women without GDM.
• Stratification by age, race, and body mass index (BMI) gave similar results.
• Compared with African American and white women without a history of GDM, the relative risk for type 2 diabetes was higher in African American women than in white women with a history of GDM.
• Compared with non–GDM women compartments, GDM women after delivery for <1, 1.0–3.9, 4.0–5.9, 6.0–7.9, 8–9.9, and ≤10.0 years had 4.00, 5.44, 4.26, 3.16, 4.49, and 4.17 times higher risk of having type 2 diabetes, respectively.