Health Information - Early Childhood Diabetes Linked to Mother's Diabetes

Early Childhood Diabetes Linked to Mother's Diabetes

A new study reveals that there is an increase in the risk of teenage onset type 2 Diabetes among babies exposed to gestational diabetes and Obesity.

As a way of preventing type 2 diabetes in adolescence, the researchers suggest a need for a life course approach that specifically addresses the growing number of women suffering from obesity and diabetes during pregnancy.

The study conducted by Dr. Dana Dabelea of the University of Colorado, Denver and colleagues investigated 79 cases of “youth-onset” type 2 diabetes diagnosed prior to their 20th birthday, and 190 control youths without diabetes.

The researchers found that the percentage of youth exposed to gestational diabetes was quite higher in diabetic subjects than in the control population (approximately 30 percent versus 6 percent). Likewise, there were considerably more youth diagnosed with diabetes (57 percent) than non-diabetics (27 percent) who were born to obese or overweight mothers.

The estimated chances of developing type 2 diabetes was 7 times higher in teenagers exposed to gestational diabetes and above 3 times higher in those exposed to maternal obesity.
Dabelea and fellow investigators have approximated that 47 percent of type 2 diabetes cases developing during the adolescent stage can be linked to the patients’ exposure to maternal diabetes and obesity during the prenatal-period.

Dabelea’s team further reports in the Diabetes Care Journal that the chances of developing type 2 diabetes was greater when the diagnosis of maternal diabetes was made before as against after pregnancy. According to the team, “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."

According to the researchers, the possible connection of offspring diabetes to maternal obesity was established after childhood BMI has been accounted for. This implies that maternal obesity is likely to cause childhood obesity, which in turn leads to increased risk of diabetes, the team says.