Childbearing Increases Risk Of Metabolic Syndrome

“Childbearing is associated directly with future development of the metabolic syndrome abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, insulin resistance and other cardiovascular disease risk factors and for women who have had gestational diabetes, the risk is more than twice greater, according to a study co-authored by University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) researchers published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. UAB Professor of Preventive Medicine Cora E. Lewis, M.D., M.S.P.H., and colleagues used data collected in the CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) study to determine the correlation between a higher incidence of the metabolic syndrome among women ages 18-30 at the start of the study who bore at least one child during the 20-year period following. ‘Our findings suggest that childbearing can contribute to the development of the metabolic syndrome and that part of the association may be through weight gain and lack of physical activity,’ Lewis said. ‘And, although women with gestational diabetes had the highest relative risk of developing the metabolic syndrome, those with non-gestational diabetes pregnancies made up the larger at-risk group.’”

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