| Shorter legs linked to pregnancy-related
diabetes
By Megan Rauscher
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Confirming several previous reports,
a new study shows that women who develop diabetes in pregnancy (a.k.a.
gestational diabetes mellitus, or GDM) tend to be shorter than their
glucose-tolerant counterparts.
Going a step further, the new research from Australia shows specifically
that women with GDM have shorter legs, or lower "leg-to-height
percentage," than women without the condition.
"Consideration of short stature as a risk factor for GDM is
not valid without taking into account the leg-to-height percentage,"
the investigators write in the medical journal Diabetes Care.
"Recently there has been a report from England that women
with type 2 diabetes but not men are also shorter as you could expect,"
Dr. Robert G. Moses from Illawarra Area Health Service in Wollongong,
New South Wales, told Reuters Health. They were shorter because
their legs were shorter (or their trunks were longer)," he
explained.
"The next logical step," Moses continued, "was to
show that this was the case in women with GDM, a group at high risk
of developing type 2 diabetes in the future."
Moses and Maria T. Mackay, a registered nurse, measured leg length
and leg-to-height percentage in 61 pregnant women with GDM and 161
who had normal tolerance for glucose.
They discovered that women with GDM were 2.8 cm (about 1 inch)
shorter on average than women who were glucose tolerant. This was
almost entirely due to their leg lengths, which were an average
of 3.2 cm shorter.
"The reason for this is not entirely apparent and will require
further research," the team admits.
The clinical implications of these observations are "unlikely
to be of major importance," the authors note. "However,
the general observation about leg-to-height percentage may stimulate
further research," they write.
"Short stature per se," Moses said, "is not a risk
factor for developing and therefore testing for GDM."
"This study does, however, further reinforce the probable
significance of the effect of intrauterine programming on the development
of diseases in later life," he added. Moreover, "it is
further evidence that much of the risk for type 2 diabetes is acquired
rather than being genetic and if it is acquired then it could be
preventable."
SOURCE: Diabetes Care, May 2004.
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