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Treating diabetes during pregnancy can break link to childhood obesity

08-28-2007 · EurekAlert!

New Kaiser Permanente study shows treating gestational diabetes can break the link to childhood obesity. The largest study of its kind, this research shows that childhood obesity risk rises with a pregnant woman's blood sugar level and untreated gestational diabetes doubles a child's risk of obesity. Authors looked at 20,000 mothers and children, and found treating gestational diabetes lowers the child's risk of obesity to same level of a mother with normal blood sugar levels.

Keywords: treating, diabetes, pregnancy, break, link, childhood, obesity, diabete

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For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. 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