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Treating Diabetes During Pregnancy Could Lead to Thinner Kids
 TUESDAY, Aug. 28 (HealthDay News) -- When women develop diabetes during pregnancy and don't get treatment, their kids face an increased risk of childhood obesity, but new research suggests that treatment can essentially eliminate that risk.
It's "remarkable" that the doubling of the risk of obesity can be completely reversed in these children, said study author Teresa Hillier, an endocrinologist and senior investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research Northwest and Hawaii.
The findings could prompt expectant moms to take more care to comply with diabetes treatment during pregnancy, Hillier said. "If I were a mother, I'd be more motivated to know that it will not only help my baby during the pregnancy, but might decrease their chances of being overweight later on."
Diabetes that develops during pregnancy, known as gestational diabetes, is a common problem for mothers. Pregnancy stresses the body, and some women become resistant to insulin and develop high blood sugar levels, Hillier said.
"The reason we screen for it is because if it's not treated, it causes an increased size of the baby, large birth weight, which causes problems with delivery for the mother and the baby," she said.
In the new study, Hillier and her colleagues examined Kaiser Permanente health records of 9,439 women who gave birth between 1995 and 2000 to see how untreated gestational diabetes would affect children at ages 5 to 7. Children who are fat at those ages are considered to face a high risk of lifetime obesity.
The study, funded by the American Diabetes Association, is published in the September issue of Diabetes Care.
If the mother's gestational diabetes wasn't treated, a child's risk of being overweight or obese was 82 percent to 89 percent higher, according to the study. But if the mother was treated, "they had the same risk" as the children of women who did not have gestational diabetes, Hillier said. "There was no difference in their risk."
Why would a mother's diabetes affect a child long after birth? The answer appears to lie in the child's metabolism, which develops during gestation and may be disrupted by the mother's high blood sugar levels, Hillier said.
The research is an "interesting first step," said Dr. Roger Unger, a diabetes specialist and a professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. But, he added, it's difficult to wade through "an impossibly complex mixture of variables" and find a cause-and-effect relationship between gestational diabetes and childhood obesity.
More information
Learn more about gestational diabetes from the American Diabetes Association  .
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Heart Attack Boosts Diabetes Risk
 THURSDAY, Aug. 23 (HealthDay News) -- After a heart attack, the risk of developing diabetes and so-called pre-diabetes rises steeply, a new study finds.
In fact, recent heart attack patients are up to four-and-a-half times more likely to develop diabetes compared with the general population and more than 15 times more likely to develop high blood sugar, according to the report in the Aug. 25 issue of The Lancet.
"Having a heart attack means that the chances of getting diabetes later are increased," said Dr. Lionel Opie, director of the Hatter Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and author of an accompanying journal editorial. "We already know that diabetes predisposes one to heart attack, now we add that heart attacks predispose one to diabetes -- one nasty disease leads to another, and it's a two-way process."
In the study, a team led by Dr. Roberto Marchioli, from the Laboratory of Clinical Epidemiology of Cardiovascular Disease, Consorzio Mario Negri Sud, Chieti, Italy, collected data on almost 8,300 Italian patients who had suffered a recent heart attack and were not previously diabetic.
More than three and a half years after the heart attack, a third of the patients had developed diabetes or had impaired insulin resistance (a precursor to diabetes), as measured by an increase in blood sugar.
When they used a lower threshold for measuring blood sugar, 62 percent of the patients were defined as diabetic.
"These findings further tie the knot between heart attacks and high blood glucose -- each is a risk for the other, the patient thus potentially being caught in a fatal vicious circle," Opie said.
Risk markers for diabetes or high blood sugar include age, high blood pressure, and use of heart medicines such as beta-blockers, cholesterol-lowering drugs, and diuretics.
The researchers found being overweight increased the risk of diabetes. Smoking also increased the risk by 60 percent. In addition, an unhealthy diet and heavy drinking increased the risk of developing diabetes after a heart attack.
"Lifestyle factors can be particularly important in preventing disease," Marchioli said. "The reductions in risk associated with a Mediterranean-type diet suggest that diet could help reduce incidence of pre-diabetes and diabetes after a [heart attack]," he added.
Opie agreed that changing diet and exercising can help cut post-heart attack diabetes risk.
"Once you have had a heart attack, watch for new diabetes -- monitor blood sugar and keep exercising a lot," Opie advised. "This 'eats up' the blood sugar. And eat Mediterranean-style, adding olive oil and nuts -- the Mediterranean diet gives some, but not total, protection from new diabetes after a heart attack."
More information
For more on diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association .
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Sugary Sodas High in Diabetes-Linked Compound
 FRIDAY, Aug. 24 (HealthDay News) -- Sodas sweetened with high fructose corn syrup contain high levels of a potentially dangerous compound often found in the blood of diabetics, a new study concludes.
It could be cause for concern, experts say, because the "reactive carbonyls" in these sugary drinks could bump up diabetes risk, particularly in children.
High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) "is the most popular sweetener used in foods and beverages today, it has been used in the United States for many years," said Chi-Tang Ho, a professor of food science at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J.
Virtually all carbonated soft drinks in the United States are sweetened with HFCS, mostly because it dissolves easily, is sweeter than other types of sugar, and is more economical. Although the study did not specifically investigate the risk of diabetes with HFCS drinks, Ho suggested that steering clear of them might be a healthy move.
His team tested 11 carbonated soft drinks that contained HFCS and found they contained high levels of reactive carbonyls -- compounds that are normally elevated in the blood of people with diabetes.
The study was expected to be presented Thursday at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in Boston.
The reactive carbonyls in the blood of diabetics have been linked to complications of diabetes, such as tissue damage, Ho said.
In his study, Ho found that just one can of HCFS-sweetened carbonated beverage contained about five times the amount of reactive carbonyls found in the blood of a person with diabetes. In comparison, sucrose -- ordinary table sugar -- contains no reactive carbonyls, he said.
Ho suggests that parents check the labels of all the beverages their children consume and discourage them from drinking those containing HCFS. Instead, substitute diet carbonated beverages, water or fruit juices.
Ho also noted that other types of beverages may contain high levels of HFCS, as well. So-called "hydrating" sports drinks often contain HFCS. Ho is particularly concerned about high-caffeine energy drinks.
"I worry about kids in high school," he said. "They rely on energy drinks to do their homework and stay awake. The level of [HFCS] is so high."
Adding a beneficial antioxidant compound found in tea called "epigallocatechin gallate," or EGCG, to drinks that contain HFCS appears to lower reactive carbonyl levels, Ho said. That could mean that drinking beverages that contain both tea extracts and HFCS may not be as harmful as drinking HCFS-sweetened sodas, he said. However, further research is needed to prove that.
Beverages that contain both fruit juice and HFCS also appear to have fewer reactive carbonyl levels, possibly because of beneficial compounds called phytochemicals found naturally in fruit juice, Ho said.
Lona Sandon is assistant professor of clinical nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. She said the Rutgers study is still inconclusive.
"It doesn't address the risk [of diabetes], it simply shows a possible mechanism for why there might be more risk in children who drink more HFCS-sweetened sodas," she said.
"Although there are other epidemiologic studies showing a correlation between sweetened soda and diabetes, it is not a proven cause-and-effect," Sandon said.
Nevertheless, she suggests that everyone follow dietary guidelines from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Those guidelines advocate reducing sweetened drinks from the diet, and "most health professionals currently recommend that kids get zero sugary drinks a day, particularly overweight or obese children," Sandon said.
Dr. Barbara B. Kahn, chief of the division of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, agreed that Ho's study "needs to be validated by other studies" before definitive conclusions can be drawn.
"However, given the marked prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes in our society, and the accompanying risks for cardiovascular disease, there is no reason related to health to drink beverages sweetened with high fructose corn syrup," said Kahn, who is also a professor of medicine at Harvard University.
"In general, it would be healthier to avoid most high-calorie beverages as part of a program to prevent obesity," she added. "There may be added reasons to avoid beverages with HFCS."
More information
Read the U.S. government's Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
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