This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Low-glycemic index, conventional healthy diet yield similar pregnancy outcomes
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
A low-glycemic index diet and healthy diet resulted in similar pregnancy outcomes in women at risk for gestational diabetes, according to recent study findings published in Diabetes Care.
“Our hypothesis was that infants born to pregnant women at high risk of [gestational diabetes] who receive an early intervention of low-[glycemic index] dietary advice will have a lower birth weight z score and lower body fat mass than those born to mothers who received advice on a macronutrient-matched diet with a moderate [glycemic index],” the researchers wrote.
Tania P. Markovic, PhD, FRACP, of the Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition, Exercise and Eating Disorders of Sydney Medical School, and colleagues evaluated 139 women (mean age, 34.7 years; prepregnancy BMI, 25.2 kg/m2) assigned to either a low-glycemic index diet (n = 72) or a moderate-glycemic index diet (n = 67), which is the currently recommended conventional healthy diet for pregnant women, at 14 to 20 weeks’ gestation to determine the effect of the diet on birth weight z score in women at high risk for gestational diabetes.
Tania P. Markovic
A significantly lower glycemic index was found among the low-glycemic index diet group compared with the moderate-glycemic index diet group (P < .001).
At 36 weeks, no differences were found among the groups for HbA1c, fructosamine or lipids. Similarly, no differences were found between the groups for birth weight (P = .514), birth weight z score (P = .697), ponderal index (P = .672), birth weight centile (P = .33), percent fat mass (P = .789) or incidence of gestational diabetes.
“In our group of well motivated women at high risk of [gestational diabetes] a low [glycemic index] diet was no better than a healthy diet in preventing excess weight or adverse pregnancy outcomes in the offspring or mothers,” Markovic told Endocrine Today. “However in those mothers who developed [gestational diabetes] insulin was instituted later and at a lower dose in mothers on the lower [glycemic index] diet. Whether there may have been more differences if we had studied a more overweight group of women whose baseline diets were not as good as this group remains to be determined. On the other hand it may be that interventions need to be instituted even earlier, ie. before conception.” – by Amber Cox
Disclosure: Markovic reports no relevant financial disclosures. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts