Plasma Glycated Albumin in Early Pregnancy and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Prospective and Longitudinal Study

Abstract

OBJECTIVE To investigate associations of plasma glycated albumin (GA) concentrations in early and midpregnancy with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) risk. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS We measured GA concentrations using blood samples collected at 10–14 and 15–26 weeks’ gestation in 107 GDM case and 214 control participants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Fetal Growth Study. We performed generalized linear mixed-effect regression to test the mean GA difference between GDM case and control participants and conditional logistic regression to assess prospective associations between GA concentrations and GDM risk. RESULTS At 15–26 weeks’ gestation mean GA was lower in GDM case participants than in control participants (mean 11.90% [95% CI 6.42–32.76] vs. 12.46% [8.45–38.35], adjusted P value for difference = 0.004). Consistently, women with higher GA concentrations tended to have a lower GDM risk, although the associations were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS This study suggests that GA concentrations in midpregnancy might be lower in women who later develop GDM. Further studies are needed to identify the mechanism.