Healthy lifestyle habits could prevent about half of all diabetes cases that develop during pregnancy, a new study finds.
Researchers looked at data from more than 14,000 American women. They found that the strongest risk factor for diabetes during pregnancy ("gestational diabetes") was being overweight or obese during pregnancy. Women who were obese before pregnancy had more than a four times higher risk of gestational diabetes than those who had a normal weight before pregnancy.
Women who were at a normal weight at the start of pregnancy, and who didn't smoke and were physically active had a 52 percent lower risk of developing gestational diabetes than other women, according to the researchers.
Although this study reports associations between the development of diabetes in pregnancy and certain lifestyle factors, the study was not designed to prove whether or not they directly cause diabetes.
[For more of this story go to http://consumer.healthday.com/...diabetes-692177.html]
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