Association of a plant-based dietary pattern in relation to gestational diabetes mellitus

Abstract

AIM: The prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), which has adverse effects on mothers and their offspring, is increasing worldwide. The role of a plant-based dietary pattern as a determinant of GDM is not well understood. Therefore, we examined the association between plant-based dietary patterns and the risk of GDM. METHODS: We enrolled 460 pregnant women in this case-control study, of them 200 were cases and 260 were controls. Dietary intake of participants was evaluated using three 24-hour dietary records. Adherence to the plant-based dietary patterns was scored using three indices of the overall plant-based dietary index (PDI), healthy plant-based diet (hPDI) and unhealthy plant-based diet index (uPDI). The risk of GDM was compared across tertiles of PDI, hPDI and uPDI. RESULTS: After multivariable adjustment, we demonstrated that the high PDI score was inversely associated with risk of GDM (OR = 0.47; 95 CI: 0.28-0.78, P = 0.004), but there was no significant association between hPDI (OR = 1.03; 95 CI: 0.64-1.65, P = 0.884) or uPDI (OR = 1.65; 95 CI: 0.98-2.78, P = 0.06) and GDM risk. CONCLUSIONS: We found that following an overall plant-based diet was associated with lower risk of GDM. Future studies are warranted with longitudinal designs to confirm these findings.