The age in which girls begin to menstruate could point out a subsequent risk of diabetes during pregnancy, according to the study of the University of Queensland (UQ), in Australia, which is published in 'American Journal of Edpidemiology'.
Researchers at the UQ Public Health School analyzed data from more than 4,700 women from the Australian longitudinal study on women's health and found that a greater number of women who had their first period at an earlier age later developed gestational diabetes.
The researcher Danielle Schoenaker points out that those who had their first period at the age of 11 or less were 50 percent more likely to develop gestational diabetes than those who experienced their first menstruation at the age of 13."This finding could mean that health professionals could begin to ask women when they had their first menstruation to identify people with the greatest risk of gestational diabetes," says Schoenaker.
Gestational diabetes is an increasingly common complication of pregnancy and can have lasting health consequences for mothers and children.Professor Gita Mishra, director of Women's Health of Australia, emphasizes that it has been shown that early puberty in girls is a significant marker of several adverse health results, including gestational diabetes.
"Research on this issue is of particular importance to public health due to world trends in girls who begin their menstrual cycles at an earlier age," says Mishra.To this, Schoenaker adds that the significant association with the risk of gestational diabetes remained after the researchers took into account the body mass index and childhood, reproduction and lifestyle factors.
"A great proportion of women who develop diabetes during pregnancy are overweight or obesity and encourage those with an early start of puberty to control their weight before pregnancy can help reduce their risk of gestational diabetes," he says."Although a healthy weight is important, it is also plausible that the greatest risk is explained by hormonal changes and that more studies are required to investigate the mechanisms behind this," he adds.