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Regular Exercise And Healthy Diet May Help Prevent Gestational Diabetes

by Reshma Anand on Aug 1 2015 4:28 PM

Regular Exercise And Healthy Diet May Help Prevent Gestational Diabetes
A simple lifestyle along with physical activity and diet control will prevent gestational diabetes even in high-risk women says a new study.
A study of 293 women with a history of gestational diabetes or a pre-pregnancy body mass index of less than 30 kg/m2 t less than 20 weeks of gestation was done. They were divided into two groups namely intervention group which received individualized counseling on diet and physical activity and the other was control group which received only standard ante-natal care.

Gestational weight gain was lower in the intervention group. Women in the intervention group also increased their leisure time physical activity more and improved their dietary quality compared to women in the control group.

"A simple and individualized lifestyle intervention reduced the incidence of gestational diabetes by 39 percent in high-risk pregnant women," said one of the researchers Saila Koivusalo from Helsinki University Hospital in Finland

“[Gestational diabetes] is a well-known risk factor for later type 2 diabetes, and prevention of [gestational diabetes] may have positive consequences for the mother in her later life but also for the offspring through the intrauteric programming process,”  said Koivusalo.

“It would be very interesting to focus more on factors within the different subgroups in order to identify the women who benefited most from the intervention. Focusing upon different ethnic groups is of major importance. The long-term consequences of the given prevention on both the women’s and children’s later health is another important topic.” said Koivusalo.

 The findings was published in the Journal Diabetes Care.

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Source-Medindia


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