11-09-2018
Gestational diabetes poses a risk for both mother and child. In the pregnant woman, it increases the risk of, among other things, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes in the future, while in the foetus, it increases the risk that it will be born with excessive body weight. It is precisely because of such risks that further methods of diagnosing gestational diabetes as early as possible are still being sought. Scientists from the National Institutes of Health argue that it is possible to estimate the risk of this disease by testing the blood concentration of glycated haemoglobin.
Glycatedhaemoglobin is a parameter that essentially tells us what the patient's average blood glucose concentration has been over the past 2-3 months (this is how long the erythrocytes, to whose haemoglobin glucose can attach, live - the higher the glucose levels, the more glucose attaches to the haemoglobin and the higher the glycated ha emoglobin level is ultimately).
Currently, fasting glucose determinations and the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) are primarily used to diagnose gestational diabetes. However, American scientists decided to take a closer look specifically at glycated haemoglobin levels and how their values correlate with the risk of gestational diabetes.
The specialists compared the glycated haemoglobin results of more than 100 pregnant women who developed gestational diabetes with those of more than 200 patients who did not. Overall, it was noted that women who eventually developed gestational diabetes had higher levels of glycated haemoglobin than those who did not develop the condition - averaging 5.3 per cent (in comparison, patients who did not develop carbohydrate disorders during pregnancy had an average glycated haemoglobin value of up to 5.1 per cent). The scientists also observed that every 0.1% increase in glycated haemoglobin in early pregnancy (i.e. in the first trimester) above 5.1% increased the risk of gestational diabetes by 22%.
Currently, glycated haemoglobin is not an indicator that is routinely used in the diagnosis or prediction of gestational diabetes risk. However, looking at the findings of the US scientists, this may change in the future.
