Pregnant Indians risk passing diabetes to babies
By Tan Ee Lyn
CHENNAI, India (Reuters) - Up to 15 percent of pregnant women in India are developing diabetes, raising the risk of their children developing the disease, said experts on Sunday, who blamed factors including malnutrition.
Experts at a diabetes summit in Chennai in southern India said genetics, a sedentary lifestyle, as well as women simply being undernourished and unable to cope with pregnancy, were the main reasons for the high rate of diabetes in pregnancy.
“If a young girl is healthy, she produces eggs that are appropriately nourished,” Chittaranjan Yajnik, director of the diabetes unit at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Pune, India, told Reuters in an interview.
“If there is a problem there, you can be sure that there is a problem for the next generation,” he said.
Rates of diabetes in pregnancy, or gestational diabetes, in Western countries are typically around 5 percent.
Experts at the summit urged earlier and more intensive screening of pregnant women in India, which has the world’s highest rate of diabetes.
The placenta produces more hormones during pregnancy, which create resistance to insulin in the mother. Usually, the mother’s pancreas would respond by producing extra insulin, but sometimes their bodies cannot keep up, leading to gestational diabetes.
Such women are more likely to develop diabetes later on in life.
(Reporting by Tan Ee Lyn; Editing by Sophie Hares)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Related Posts:
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Following gestational diabetes, a type of diabetes that developments during pregnancy and usually goes away after pregnancy, treatment with metformin or intensive lifestyle interventions can prevent or delay diabetes from becoming permanent in the postpartum period, new research shows. Lead author Dr. Robert E. Ratner at Medstar Research Institute in Hyattsville,
Full Post: Metformin can prevent postpartum diabetes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Certain ethnic groups and women with lower socioeconomic status are at increased risk of developing diabetes while pregnant, research shows. Thirty percent of women who develop “gestational diabetes” will develop type 2 diabetes within the next 7 to 10 years, Dr. Hidde P. van der Ploeg of the University of Sydney,
Full Post: Risk of diabetes in pregnancy higher in some women
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Tan Ee Lyn CHENNAI, India (Reuters) - The prevalence of diabetes worldwide will far outstrip even the sharp increase currently projected unless rising trends of obesity are controlled, health experts said on Saturday. Adult-onset diabetes has been linked to risk factors like aging, an inactive lifestyle, unhealthy diets, smoking, alcohol and obesity. The silent, chronic disease
Full Post: Obesity fuels fears of faster diabetes rise
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Tan Ee Lyn CHENNAI, India (Reuters) - India’s health minister on Saturday said he wants to push all school-going children to learn yoga, in the hope that it can reduce the prevalence of diseases such as diabetes and hypertension in years to come. Last week, Malaysia’s National Fatwa Council, comprising Islamic scholars, sparked widespread protests when
Full Post: India minister wants all school kids to learn yoga
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By David Douglas NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Intensive control of high blood pressure (hypertension) leads to improved pregnancy outcomes in women with type 1 diabetes and kidney disease, Danish researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care. “Diabetic women with kidney involvement have an increased risk of complications in pregnancy leading to preterm delivery,” lead investigator Dr.
Full Post: Blood pressure control key for diabetic pregnancy