4. New blood test can detect gestational diabetes
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) have discovered that using a blood test to measure a diabetes biomarker found at 24-28 weeks of gestation allowed them to identify women who failed the glucose challenge test and had gestational diabetes. The test was also able to determine the possibility of a woman delivering a large-for-gestational-age newborn.
The researchers initially wanted to determine how accurate the diabetes biomarker GCD59 was in predicting the results of the glucose challenge test.
They started by studying 1,000 pregnant women. Of those women, 500 failed the glucose challenge test and had to do an oral glucose tolerance test. Researchers saw that the presence of GCD59 was 8.5 times higher in women who failed the glucose challenge test and 10 times higher in women who met the criteria for gestational diabetes.
“This is the first study to demonstrate that a single measurement of plasma GCD59 can be used as a simplified method to identify women who are at risk for failing the glucose challenge test and are at higher risk for developing gestational diabetes,” said Jose Halperin, a physician and director of the Hematology Laboratory for Translational Research at BWH and senior author of the publication, in an article from ScienceDaily.
There was also a higher chance of a child being born as large-for-gestational-age when GCD59 levels were higher.