A medical panel has concluded that gestational diabetes has been severely under diagnosed and is proposing new guidelines that could triple the cases.
A seven year study has shown that even low increases in blood sugar, when pregnant, can increase the odds of having unhealthy babies. Many of these low risk women are having overweight babies which later in life have an increased risk of developing diabetes and becoming obese.. Besides the risk to the babies later in life, these oversized babies are a risk to the diabetic mother during delivery.
The new proposed guidelines would recommend fasting blood sugar to be 92, the one-hour and two-hour glucose tolerance test to be 180 and 153 respectively to qualify for the gestational diabetes diagnosis. Today, the diagnosis of gestational diabetes is around five percent and with the new guidelines the diagnostic rate will rise to fifteen percent. Experts fear that if this new guideline is not recognized, we will be looking at the next epidemic of type 2 diabetes.
Type 2 diabetes is very often successfully treated with dietary changes and increased exercise, so it is not a great burden on society, if diagnosed early. No drugs or insulin are needed if an early diagnosis is found.