Plasma Glycated Albumin in Early Pregnancy and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: a prospective and longitudinal study

Objective Investigate associations of plasma glycated albumin (GA) concentrations in early and mid-pregnancy with GDM risk. Research Design and Methods We measured GA concentrations using blood samples collected at 10-14 and 15-26 weeks’ gestation (GW) in 107 GDM cases and 214 controls from the NICHD Fetal Growth Study. We performed generalized linear mixed-effect regression to test the mean GA difference between GDM cases and controls, and conditional logistic regression to assess prospective associations between GA concentrations and GDM risk. Results At 15-26 GW, mean GA was lower in GDM cases than controls (mean (95% CI): 11.90 (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 mid-pregnancy might be lower in women who later develop GDM. Further studies are needed to identify the mechanism.