Understanding Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

For the majority of women, carrying a child is the greatest blessing one can ever experience. It is a joyous time for both expectant parents because it is a celebration of another life. Even though a lot of women go through discomforts while pregnant, these are quickly managed since most of these minor pains ease off typically right after the first trimester. Unluckily for a couple of women, pregnancy is considered a problematic time because of complications that need a whole lot of attention and consideration. And one particular common complication of pregnancy is gestational diabetes mellitus or GDM, also known as gestational diabetes in pregnancy.

Gestational diabetes mellitus is defined as glucose intolerance that affects pregnant women. It occurs in around 4 percent to 10 percent of women that are pregnant and often goes away after delivery. Women who are likely to suffer from GDM are the following: pregnant women who are obese, women who are 25 years and older, women who have history of GDM with previous pregnancies, history of giving birth to a big baby (usually 9 lbs. or more) and family history of type 2 diabetes.

The symptoms of gestational diabetes mellitus are usually ignored because they are confused with the normal discomforts of pregnancy. The most prevalent symptoms of gestational diabetes are: increased frequency of urination, increased thirst and increased hunger. However, there are tests available in order to know whether these symptoms are brought about by hormonal imbalances that normally occur during pregnancy or if these are already signs of gestational diabetes mellitus.

Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) measures the response of insulin to glucose loading. This type of procedure is typically done during the 24th to 28th week of pregnancy. This gestational diabetes test necessitates the pregnant woman to fast at least eight hours before heading to the lab. Later on, she will be requested to consume a sweetened liquid with 50- to 200-g of sugar. A small amount of blood sample will then be extracted at .25, 1, 2 and 3 hours intervals. Gestational diabetes mellitus is confirmed if the 2-hr value is 200 mg/dL or greater.

Being healthy is always a priority when one is pregnant. It's worthwhile to have regular checkups so that your doctor can keep track of your condition and try everything that's possible to help you and your little one become satisfied and healthy.

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Unveiling The Causes Of Gestational Diabetes

Gestational diabetes or GDM is a type of diabetes that affects only pregnant women, typically during the second trimester of pregnancy. About 4 to 10 percent suffer from this condition, making it one of the most common concerns of expectant mothers. Gestational diabetes can indeed be hard to understand but to simply put it, it means that a person has unusually high levels of sugar in the blood, thus the term "high blood sugar".

One of two conditions occurs in gestational diabetes. Possibly, there isn't sufficient insulin in the blood or the body is not responding to insulin as necessary (also called "insulin resistance"). Insulin is a hormone that is vital in regulating carbohydrate (glucose) and fat metabolism in the body. It pushes the body to take up glucose (sugar) from the blood in order that the liver can store it as glycogen. Small amounts of insulin or insulin resistance both lead to the same thing – sugar is not taken up and thus accumulates in the blood.

It is also believed that certain pregnancy hormones place pregnant women at risk for developing such condition. Human Placental Lactogen, cortisol, estriol, and progesterone are pregnancy hormones that are thought to hinder insulin from doing its job. If the body becomes resistant to insulin, blood sugar levels rise. To compensate for such increase in the amount of glucose in the blood, the pancreas tries to produce more insulin. The pancreas has its limits though. If the pancreas cannot keep up with the increased demand for insulin, the sugar levels rise and gestational diabetes occurs.

Some other risk factors that can make women susceptible to GDM are: being overweight, family history of diabetes, previously giving birth to a big baby (usually 9 lbs or more in weight), having gestational diabetes with previous pregnancies and having too much amniotic fluid (termed as "polyhydramnios").

Most people may find it hard to understand the causes of gestational diabetes. But keep in mind that as a mother, you can always do something to counteract the causes of gestational diabetes. Proper diet, exercise and regular prenatal check-ups are just some of the things you can do to make sure that you and your baby will have a healthy, stress-free, and fun-filled journey together.

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Minimize diabetes risk by getting vegetarian food

Most of people in digital age of world very conscious about their health and specially taking foods by turning to the option of vegetarian cooking. It has been suggested that many of the proteins and amino acids we ingest every time we eat meat are not necessary, and can even be harmful to our overall health in regards of healthy eating. If you are a diabetes sufferer, you are not alone as more than 30 million people worldwide are affected by this disease. Diabetes can affect people of all ages, male or female. It does not discriminate. There are some who have no choice, unable to eat meat products due to allergies and illnesses. They are obliged to choose their food carefully, and with this in mind.


During taking food items, we eat is digested and converted to glucose, a sugar which is carried by the blood to all cells in the body and used for energy. One of the most important ways of controlling diabetes is via a vegetarian lifestyle complimented by low fat, high fiber, nutrient and vitamin rich foods. When you eliminate high-fat meat and processed foods from your diet, much of your body's energy is not consumed with digesting these healthy foods and is therefore more able to do its work by helping to clear your blood, your organs and your mind. You will soon realize and become aware of the toxic nature and harmful bacteria in the food you have been eating adopting through health tips. A vegetarian lifestyle for diabetics as a result of a meatless diet, can assist in reducing the amount of insulin the body requires and can give sufferers a feeling of more control over the disease. Once you commence vegetarian meals, your body will eventually cleanse itself of the harmful effects of the toxic foods you have been eating.

One group of vegetables are gathered from the farms and gardens where they grow fully ripened and ready to eat. These are given the convenient label of "salad vegetables". Some vegetables are too solid (or 'dense') to be enjoyed in their natural, raw state. These include roots such as beet, turnip and potato, and need to be softened by cooking before we can chew and swallow them easily. I sure this will must changing in your life and will make your life prolonging step you are taking. "Vegetarianism and Diabetes – Friends for Life!!

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Improving Health By Moving Poor Women To Lower-Poverty Neighborhoods

Low-income women with children who move from high-poverty to lower-poverty neighborhoods experience notable long-term improvements in some aspects of their health, namely reductions in diabetes and extreme obesity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Chicago and partner institutions.

The study was the first to employ a randomized experimental design - akin to a randomized clinical trial used to test the efficacy of new drugs - to learn about the connections between neighborhood poverty and health. The study was published Oct. 20 in the New England Journal of Medicine in a special article, "Neighborhoods, Obesity and Diabetes - A Randomized Social Experiment." The lead author for the collaboration was Jens Ludwig, the McCormick Foundation Professor of Social Service Administration, Law and Public Policy at UChicago.

For the study, Ludwig and a team of scholars from around the country studied 4,498 poor women and children, who from 1994 to 1998, enrolled in a residential mobility program called Moving to Opportunity. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development operated MTO in five United States cities - Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

The MTO program enrolled low-income families with children living in distressed public housing. Families volunteered for the experiment, and based on the results of a random lottery, were offered the chance to use a housing voucher subsidy to move into a lower-poverty community. Other families were randomly assigned to a control group that received no special assistance under the program.

The study collected information during 2008-10 on families who had enrolled in the program 10 to 15 years before. The research team directly measured the heights and weights of MTO participants, and it also collected blood samples to test for diabetes.
At the time of follow-up, 17 percent of the women in the study's control group were morbidly obese (body mass index at or above 40), and 20 percent had diabetes. However, in the group of women who were offered housing vouchers to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods, the rates of morbid obesity and diabetes were both about one fifth lower than in the control group. "These findings provide strong evidence that the environments in low-income neighborhoods can contribute to poor health," said Ludwig.

The research team included another UChicago faculty member, Dr. Stacy Tessler Lindau, associate professor in obstetrics and gynecology, and an expert in urban health.
"Obesity and diabetes are among the biggest health problems facing our country, and they are preventable. But preventing these conditions through interventions that target individual behavioral change has proven very difficult," she said.

"This study shows that where a woman lives with her children may, in part, determine whether she develops serious, costly, life-shortening diseases like diabetes and extreme obesity. Giving a low-income woman the opportunity to move with her children to a less impoverished neighborhood appears to lower her risk of diabetes and extreme obesity," she said.

The study's findings that disadvantaged community environments contribute to extreme obesity and diabetes could help explain the increase over time in these health problems. The study's findings could also help explain disparities in obesity and diabetes prevalence across race and ethnic lines in the U.S.

"The increase in U.S. residential segregation according to income in recent decades suggests that a larger portion of the population is being exposed to distressed neighborhood environments," they write in the paper. "Minorities are also more likely than whites to live in distressed areas."

"These results highlight the great importance of learning more about what specific aspects of the social or physical environment reduce the risk of diabetes and obesity; for example, greater access to grocery stores, more opportunities for physical activity, or feelings of greater safety and reduced psychological stress," said Ludwig.

"Given that diabetes and obesity are associated with a large number of health complications and higher cost for medical care, the findings from this study suggest that improving the environments of low-income urban neighborhoods might improve the duration and quality of life for the residents and lower health care expenditures," said another study co-author, Dr. Robert Whitaker, Professor of Public Health and Pediatrics at Temple University, and an expert on obesity and diabetes.

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Yoga to Help Diabetics

Yoga is no substitute for the more vigorous exercise which many people with diabetes need in order to lose weight, but a new study suggests that it may offer some of its own benefits. The findings showed that yoga classes (when added to standard diabetes care) helped study participants pare a few pounds and also improved their blood sugar control. A total of 123 middle-aged and older individuals participated in the study, and about half of them took yoga classes several times a week for three months.

Compared to the study's control group, the participants who took the yoga classes lost a small amount of weight, but more impressively their blood sugar levels remained under control (indicators of poor sugar control rose among those in the non-yoga group). What's more, researchers found that signs of oxidative stress declined in the yoga group. In fact, levels of body chemicals reflective of this stress decreased by 20 percent. The study was published online August 11 by the journal Diabetes Care.

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Men Develop Diabetes With Less Body Fat Than Women: Study

Men Develop Diabetes With Less Body Fat Than Women: Study

 Men develop type 2 diabetes at a lower body-mass index (BMI) than women, and this finding helps explain why men have higher rates of diabetes in many parts of the world, researchers report.
They analyzed data from 51,920 men and 43,137 women in Scotland with diabetes and found that average BMI at diabetes diagnosis was 31.83 in men and 33.69 in women. This difference was most noticeable at younger ages, the researchers said.
The study was published online Sept. 30 in the journal Diabetologia.
The findings confirm the hypothesis that men have to gain less weight to develop diabetes, according to study leader Professor Naveed Sattar, of the Institute of Cardiovascular and Medical Sciences at the University of Glasgow.
Fat distribution may explain why men develop diabetes with less weight gain than women. Men tend to have more fat in their abdominal regions and in their liver than women, while women have greater amounts of "safe" subcutaneous (beneath the skin) fat than men.
"It is worrying that men develop type 2 diabetes at a higher rate than their female counterparts. Research like this will help us understand reasons why and provide greater insight into what we can do to improve prevention of type 2 diabetes," Dr. Victoria King, head of research at Diabetes UK, said in a university news release.
-- Robert Preidt

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Red Meat and Diabetes

Cut back on red meat - processed and unprocessed - and you may dramatically lower your risk of type 2 diabetes. After analyzing responses to more than 442,000 questionnaires from studies over 28 years, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health suggested that eating a daily serving of about 1.8 ounces of processed red meat such as hot dogs, sausages or bacon is linked to a 51 percent increase in the risk of type 2 diabetes. The same analysis showed that eating 3.53 ounces daily of unprocessed red meat boosts the risk by 19 percent. The research team also found that substituting a daily serving of nuts cut the risk by 21 percent, substituting low fat dairy led to a 17 percent risk reduction and eating whole grains lowered the risk by 23 percent. The study didn't find that processed and unprocessed red meat causes type 2 diabetes, but rather that increased risks of the disease are associated with the regular consumption of these meats. The study was published online August 10 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

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