A Mystery About Diabetes in Pregnancy

Gestational diabetes is a form of type 2 diabetes that first appears during pregnancy. Pregnancy acts as a pressure test that can trigger health problems that might not surface otherwise. Rates of gestational diabetes have increased for people of Asian descent in both Asian countries and multicultural settings such as the United States, generally tracking increases in type 2 diabetes. Chinese Americans are an outlier, with gestational diabetes rising at a rate that appears to outpace the rise in diabetes in that population. Researchers are collecting emerging data and plan to seek federal funding to test an intervention in the greater Boston area to reduce gestational diabetes among Asian Americans more broadly. Evidence could clarify whether Chinese Americans face particularly high risk and improve tailoring of prevention efforts.

"“one group is an outlier,” King said. In recent years, gestational diabetes has climbed among people of Chinese descent at a rate that appears to outpace the rise in diabetes in that population, and “no one seems to know why,” he said."

"“Pregnancy is a pressure test for your body,” Tam Nguyen, a chronic-disease researcher at Boston College, told me—and it can catalyze health issues that might not have plagued people otherw"

"The data supporting this discrepancy are still just emerging, King and his colleagues told me, and they hope to collect more of the evidence themselves. By this fall, they plan to apply for federal funding to study an intervention they'd like to test in the greater Boston area to reduce rates of gestational diabetes among Asian Americans more broadly."

"For years, gestational diabetes has been ticking upward in people of Asian descent-both in countries in Asia and in highly multicultural nations such as the United States. In general, those rises have tracked with increases in type 2 diabetes, a condition with similar risk factors."

Read at The Atlantic