It’s “remarkable” that the doubling of the risk of obesity can be completely reversed in these children, said study author Teresa Hillier, an endocrinologist and senior investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research Northwest and Hawaii. Diabetes that develops during pregnancy, known as gestational diabetes, is a common problem for mothers. In the new study, Hillier and her colleagues examined Kaiser Permanente health records of 9,439 women who gave birth between 1995 and 2000 to see how untreated gestational diabetes would affect children at ages 5 to 7. The study, funded by the American Diabetes Association, is published in the September issue of Diabetes Care . If the mother’s gestational diabetes wasn’t treated, a child’s risk of being overweight or obese was 82 percent to 89 percent higher, according to the study. read more

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