Gum disease leads to gestational diabetes

MIAMI, April 7 (UPI) -- Pregnant women with periodontal disease face an increased risk of developing gestational diabetes, U.S. researchers found.

Study leader Dr. Ananda P. Dasanayake of New York University College of Dentistry, in collaboration with the faculty of dental sciences at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, compared pregnant women who had smoked and drunk alcohol with those who did not. Smoking and drinking are both risk factors for gum disease.

The study tracked 256 women at New York's Bellevue Hospital Center through their first six months of pregnancy. This group was compared to a second group of 190 pregnant women in the South Asian island nation of Sri Lanka, where a combination of cultural taboos and poverty deter the majority of women from smoking and drinking.

Twenty-two of the women developed gestational diabetes.

Those women had significantly higher levels of periodontal bacteria and inflammation than the other women in the study. Those women found to have the greatest amount of bleeding in their gums also had the highest levels of glucose in their blood, whether or not they smoke or drank.

"Women should see a dentist if they plan to get pregnant, and after becoming pregnant," Dasanayake said in a statement.

Dasanayake presented the findings at the annual meeting of the International Association for Dental Research in Miami. The findings are also published in the Journal of Dental Research.