Researchers found that women who have a history of diabetes during pregnancy can still reduce their risk of developing it by living a healthy lifestyle that includes eating well, quitting smoking, exercising frequently, and avoiding weight gain. The results show that women who adhered to five key lifestyle factors, healthy weight, high-quality diet, regular physical activity, moderate alcohol consumption, and not smoking, had a 90 per cent lower risk of the disorder compared with women who did not adhere to any, even among those who were overweight or obese, or were at greater genetic risk of type 2 diabetes. The results are based on data for 4,275 women with a history of gestational diabetes mellitus from the Nurses’ Health Study II with repeated measurements of weight and lifestyle factors over 28 years of follow-up.
The researchers also assessed whether these associations changed according to obesity status or underlying genetic susceptibility for type 2 diabetes. Over an average of 28 years of follow-up, 924 women developed type 2 diabetes. After taking into account other major diabetes risk factors, the researchers found that participants who had optimal levels of all five modifiable factors after the index pregnancy had a more than 90% lower risk for developing type 2 diabetes compared with those who did not have any.
Each additional optimal modifiable factor was associated with an incrementally lower risk of type 2 diabetes. For example, women with one, two, three, four, and five optimal levels of modifiable factors compared with none had a 6%, 39%, 68%, 85%, and 92% lower risk, respectively. And these beneficial associations were consistently seen, even among women who were overweight or obese or who had a higher genetic susceptibility to type 2 diabetes.
While this is an observational study and can’t establish cause, the researchers acknowledge that the data relied on personal reports, which may have affected accuracy.
