High prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors and insulin resistance 6 years after hyperglycemia first detected in pregnancy in Cape Town, South Africa

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence and associated cardiovascular risk factors 6 years after hyperglycemia first detected in pregnancy (HFDP) in Cape Town, South Africa. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: Data were collected during the index pregnancy from all women diagnosed with HFDP at a major referral hospital in Cape Town. Participants were evaluated 6 years later using a cross-sectional study. At follow-up participants had a 75 g oral glucose tolerance test, fasting lipogram, blood pressure and anthropometric measurements, and a fieldworker administered the questionnaire. We used the Adult Treatment Panel III criteria for the diagnosis of metabolic syndrome and individual risk factors. Insulin resistance was assessed using the homeostatic model of insulin resistance. RESULTS: At follow-up 220 women were reviewed. Their mean age at follow-up was 37.2 (SD 6.0) years. The prevalence of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factors was 60.9% (95% CI 54.3 to 67.2) for metabolic syndrome, 75% (95% CI 65.9 to 82.3) for insulin resistance, 62.3% (95% CI 55.6 to 68.5) for dysglycemia, 41.4% (95% CI 35.0 to 48.0) for raised blood pressure, and 74.6% (95% CI 683 to 79.9) for dyslipidemia. Women with diabetes in pregnancy compared with those with gestational diabetes during the index pregnancy had a higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome (74.3% vs 54.7%, p=0.010) and dysglycemia (88.6% vs 50.0%, p<0.001) at follow-up. Lower school education attainment, having a subsequent pregnancy, waist circumference at follow-up, and fasting blood glucose at HFDP diagnosis were associated with metabolic syndrome. CONCLUSION: We found a high prevalence of CVD risk factors in South African women within 6 years of HFDP, which highlights the need to develop and evaluate interventions optimizing the cardiometabolic health of this vulnerable group. The main limitations of our research are the lack of a comparative group of women without HFDP and that we did not assess for CVD risk factors before HFDP.