Height and Risk of Gestational Diabetes: Does Maternal Race Make a Difference?

Jennifer Brite, City University of New York (CUNY)
Eric Shiroma, Harvard University
Katherine Bowers, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
Edwina Yeung, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH
Katherine Laughon, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH
Una Grewal, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH
Cuilin Zhang, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), NIH

Gestational diabetes (GDM), a common pregnancy complication, affects different race/ethnicities disproportionally. Adult height, an indicator of both genetic and early-life factors, was inversely associated with GDM in most studies. The current study investigates the association of height with GDM risk and whether the association varies by race. The Consortium on Safe Labor (CSL) is an observational study capturing 135,861 deliveries (2005-2007), including 5,567 GDM cases. CSL data suggest height is significantly and inversely associated with GDM risk across race/ethnicities, with magnitude of association greatest in Asians and smallest in Blacks (p-value <0.001). Comparing extreme quartiles of height, the adjusted ORs (95% CI) were 0.19 (0.10-0.38) for Asians, 0.35 (0.30-0.40) for Whites, 0.42 (0.33-0.55) for Hispanics, and 0.59 (0.47-0.76) for Blacks. Additionally, a meta-analysis of 15,761 women with GDM and 205,828 without from 38 studies found GDM women were significantly shorter than non-GDM women across race/ethnicity groups except among Black women.