Ye Seul Yang; Hye Seung Jung

doi:10.4093/dmj.2020.0023

Articles

Page Path: HOME > Diabetes Metab J > Volume 44(1); 2020 > Article

Letter Letter: Early Assessment of the Risk for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Can Fasting Parameters of Glucose Metabolism Contribute to Risk Prediction? (Diabetes Metab J 2019;43:785–93): Ye Seul Yang, Hye Seung Jung; Diabetes & Metabolism Journal 2020;44(1):199-200.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4093/dmj.2020.0023
Published online: February 21, 2020

2,913 Views
48 Download
1 Crossref

Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.

Corresponding author: Hye Seung Jung. Department of Internal Medicine, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul National University College of Medicine, 101 Daehak-ro, Jongno-gu, Seoul 03080, Korea. junghs@snu.ac.kr

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Full Article

Download PDF

NOTES
REFERENCES

See the letter "Early Assessment of the Risk for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Can Fasting Parameters of Glucose Metabolism Contribute to Risk Prediction?" on page 785.

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is one of the most common medical complications during pregnancy, and it is associated with increased risk of perinatal morbidities, including preeclampsia, birth injury, macrosomia, and neonatal hypoglycemia. Moreover, it is related to an increased risk of diabetes mellitus after delivery, obesity, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) of offspring. Early identification of the high-risk group for GDM as well as diagnosis of GDM are important because treatment of GDM decreases the risk of these complications. In recent diabetes treatment guidelines including the one from American Diabetes Association, standard diagnostic criteria for diabetes are used for pregnant women to find the pregestational T2DM at their first antenatal visit. In the case of women without T2DM, rescreening for GDM between 24 and 28 weeks of gestation is recommended. Therefore, GDM is usually intervened during late pregnancy and it may not be enough to improve the pregnancy outcome. Even though various biomarkers in early pregnancy have been postulated as early predictors [1], accurate biomarkers or cutoff values for GDM in early pregnancy are still not well-established [1 2].

With this background, the article entitled “Early assessment of the risk for gestational diabetes mellitus: can fasting parameters of glucose metabolism contribute to risk prediction?” covered an interesting topic. In this study, Falcone et al. [3] evaluated the biochemical predictors of glycemic conditions in early pregnancy, especially fasting parameters, to predict the development of GDM and the need of glucose-lowering medication. They found that fasting parameters were significantly different between woman who developed GDM and woman who maintained their normal glucose tolerance state in late trimester. They also showed higher fasting levels of fasting plasma glucose (FPG; odds ratio [OR], 1.13; area under the receiver operating characteristic curves [ROC-AUC]=68.1) and fasting C-peptide (OR, 2.42; ROC-AUC=70.6) were associated with a higher risk of developing GDM.

Several previous studies showed the association between fasting glucose and the development of GDM [4 5 6 7]. In this study, although the number of participants is relatively small, it is meaningful to examine the association of GDM with other indices on insulin sensitivity and secretion, which have not been tested in other studies. It is expected that studies in larger cohorts will reveal solid predictors.

During pregnancy, insulin resistance increases, but pancreatic β-cells compensate for this, and insulin secretion increases to maintain normal blood glucose. Therefore, it is understood that gestational diabetes occurs when insulin secretion does not increase enough to compensate for the increased resistance to insulin [8 9]. In this study, several parameters of insulin secretion (homeostatic model assessment of β-cell function [HOMA-B], insulinogenic index [IGI] from insulin, and IGI from C-peptide) were higher in GDM patients than normal glucose tolerance participants in early trimester, suggesting physiologic response to compensate for increased insulin resistance. However, the increase in insulin secretion in the GDM group was not obvious (P>0.05 for HOMA-B) compared to that of insulin resistance (P<0.001) even from early pregnancy.

As was pointed out by authors in this study, the correlation between fasting parameters in early pregnancy and the postprandial glucose tolerance test (GTT) at later stage was relatively week. It suggested that, fasting parameters did not fully reflect the major pathophysiology of GDM. Indeed, in a prospective randomized controlled trial to compare the diagnostic superiority of three methods (FPG, 50 g GTT, and 75 g GTT) in the first trimester, both 50 g GTT and 75 g GTT were superior to the criteria of fasting glucose [10]. However, considering the clinical feasibility, fasting variables could be used meaningfully if insulin resistance and insulin secretion capacity could be calculated appropriately, as were those in this study. The authors calculated ROC-AUC values for each variable, but composite variables representing both insulin secretion and insulin resistance might have high ROC-AUC with better predictive power.

In addition, we expect that prospective studies would be conducted to determine whether early interventions, like lifestyle modifications, in the first trimester can affect the development of GDM, perinatal outcomes or needs for medical treatment in the high-risk group of GDM stratified by these early-stage parameters of glucose metabolism.

NOTES

CONFLICTS OF INTEREST: No potential conflict of interest relevant to this article was reported.

REFERENCES

1. Powe CE. Early pregnancy biochemical predictors of gestational diabetes mellitus. Curr Diab Rep 2017;17:12. Article PubMed PDF
2. McIntyre HD, Sacks DA, Barbour LA, Feig DS, Catalano PM, Damm P, McElduff A. Issues with the diagnosis and classification of hyperglycemia in early pregnancy. Diabetes Care 2016;39:53-54. Article PubMed PDF
3. Falcone V, Kotzaeridi G, Breil MH, Rosicky I, Stopp T, Yerlikaya-Schatten G, Feichtinger M, Eppel W, Husslein P, Tura A, Gobl CS. Early assessment of the risk for gestational diabetes mellitus: can fasting parameters of glucose metabolism contribute to risk prediction? Diabetes Metab J 2019;43:785-793. Article PubMed PMC PDF
4. Riskin-Mashiah S, Younes G, Damti A, Auslender R. First-trimester fasting hyperglycemia and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Diabetes Care 2009;32:1639-1643. Article PubMed PMC PDF
5. Corrado F, D'Anna R, Cannata ML, Interdonato ML, Pintaudi B, Di Benedetto A. Correspondence between first-trimester fasting glycaemia, and oral glucose tolerance test in gestational diabetes diagnosis. Diabetes Metab 2012;38:458-461. Article PubMed
6. Zhu WW, Yang HX, Wei YM, Yan J, Wang ZL, Li XL, Wu HR, Li N, Zhang MH, Liu XH, Zhang H, Wang YH, Niu JM, Gan YJ, Zhong LR, Wang YF, Kapur A. Evaluation of the value of fasting plasma glucose in the first prenatal visit to diagnose gestational diabetes mellitus in china. Diabetes Care 2013;36:586-590. Article PubMed PMC PDF
7. Cosson E, Carbillon L, Valensi P. High fasting plasma glucose during early pregnancy: a review about early gestational diabetes mellitus. J Diabetes Res 2017;2017:8921712. Article PubMed PMC PDF
8. Buchanan TA, Metzger BE, Freinkel N, Bergman RN. Insulin sensitivity and B-cell responsiveness to glucose during late pregnancy in lean and moderately obese women with normal glucose tolerance or mild gestational diabetes. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1990;162:1008-1014. Article PubMed
9. Catalano PM, Tyzbir ED, Wolfe RR, Calles J, Roman NM, Amini SB, Sims EA. Carbohydrate metabolism during pregnancy in control subjects and women with gestational diabetes. Am J Physiol 1993;264:E60-E67. Article PubMed
10. Yeral MI, Ozgu-Erdinc AS, Uygur D, Seckin KD, Karsli MF, Danisman AN. Prediction of gestational diabetes mellitus in the first trimester, comparison of fasting plasma glucose, two-step and one-step methods: a prospective randomized controlled trial. Endocrine 2014;46:512-518. Article PubMed PDF

Figure & Data

References

Citations

Citations to this article as recorded by

Comparison of the Effect of Face-to-face and Social Media-based Training on the Self-care of Women with Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM) in Birjand
Mohaddeseh Hosseinzadeh, Gholamreza Sharifzadeh, Mostafa Hosseinzadeh, Marzieh Torshizi
Modern Care Journal.2022;[Epub] CrossRef

PubReader

Cite

CITE: export Copy Format; Close

Download Citation

Download a citation file in RIS format that can be imported by all major citation management software, including EndNote, ProCite, RefWorks, and Reference Manager.

Format:

RIS — For EndNote, ProCite, RefWorks, and most other reference management software
BibTeX — For JabRef, BibDesk, and other BibTeX-specific software

Include:

Citation for the content below
Citation and abstract for the content below

Letter: Early Assessment of the Risk for Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Can Fasting Parameters of Glucose Metabolism Contribute to Risk Prediction? (Diabetes Metab J 2019;43:785–93)

Diabetes Metab J. 2020;44(1):199-200. Published online February 21, 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4093/dmj.2020.0023

XML Download