Gestational diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance in pregnant women

Objective: to evaluate correlations between insulin secretion and resistance in patients with gestational diabetes mellitus (gdm) and gestational impaired glucose tolerance (gigt). methods: three hundred thirty six pregnant women with an oral glucose tolerance test (ogtt) were tested and measured insulin function indices (ifi), insulin resistance indices (homa-ir) as well as blood serum triglycerides (tg), total cholesterol (tch) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (ldl-c) concentrations. gigt patients were further divided into subgroups according to hyperglycemia appearance 1, 2 or 3 hours after glucose ingestion. results: gdm and gigt correlated with age (p<0.05), family history of diabetes (p<0.05) and pre-pregnancy body mass indices (bmis) (p<0.05). blood pressures were higher in gdm than in gigt and normal glucose tolerance (ngt) patients (p<0.05). the ifis were gradually reduced (p<0.05), whereas homa-ir was gradually enhanced (p<0.05) in the gigt and gdm patients. blood serum tg, tch and ldl-c concentrations were higher in the gigt and gdm groups (p<0.05) and the gigt 1 hour hyperglycemia subgroup had highest pregnancy weight gain and homa-ir values (p<0.05). conclusions: advanced age, family history of diabetes, high bmis and blood pressure were risk factors for gigt and gdm, which were both caused by reduced insulin secretion and enhanced insulin resistance.