Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is known to increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). A study to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Milan, Italy, investigated the association between previous GDM and the age at T2DM onset, disease characteristics, and complications among 2,865 women (173 with previous GDM and 2,692 without GDM) enrolled in the Danish Centre for Strategic Research in Type 2 Diabetes cohort. Women with previous GDM were diagnosed with T2DM almost 13 years earlier than those without previous GDM (median age, 43.5 vs 56.3 years).

Notably, about 40% of women with previous GDM were younger than 40 years at diabetes onset, compared with only 6% of those without previous GDM. The prevalence of insulin treatment was approximately two-fold higher among women with previous GDM (10.4% vs 5.2%),…