Louise Groth Grunnet - Does exposure to hyperglycemia during pregnancy increase the risk of an adverse cardiometabolic profile in the offspring? - Or is it more a matter of maternal adiposity during pregnancy?

During the last years a great scientific focus has been on the potential implications of exposure to hyperglycemia during pregnancy for long-term adiposity and cardio-metabolic outcomes in the offspring.

However, whether it is the hyperglycemia per se in utero that drives the adverse metabolic programming in the offspring or if it is merely an impact of an adipose intrauterine environment caused by high maternal BMI during pregnancy is still highly debated. Therefore we propose to investigate and compare the impact of intrauterine programming by gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), adiposity or a combination of both in a sub cohort of the Danish National Birth Cohort consisting of 200 offspring at the age 12-18 years.

We want to examine 50 offspring whose mother had GDM, 50 offspring of non-obese GDM women, 50 offspring of overweight/obese non-GDM women and 50 offspring of non-obese, non-GDM offspring. Postprandial lipidiemia will be assessed using an oral fat tolerance test, cardio-vascular tests and puberty status according to Tanner’s classification will be performed. DNA and RNA will be extracted from the blood samples for epigenetic analyses.

Findings from the present study are likely to include answers immediately relevant to public health and the prevention and treatment of cardio-metabolic disorders such as hypertension, obesity and postprandial lipidiemia among offspring exposed to GDM and/or obesity during pregnancy.

The feasibility of the study is built upon an ongoing collaboration between Rigshospitalet, Harvard University, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and Statens Serum Institut.