Correlation between low serum vitamin D levels and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus among pregnant women in the rural area attending tertiary care center
Background: Diabetes mellitus with the first onset in pregnancy is known as gestational diabetesmellitus (GDM) which is a common complication of pregnancy. Maternal vitamin D status has beenassociated with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) but the evidence is inconsistent. Duringpregnancy, this deficiency is even more critical. It appears that vitamin D insufficiency duringpregnancy may be associated with maternal hazards. Methods: This study included 200 pregnantwomen. 100 women already diagnosed with GDM were taken as cases and 100 normal pregnantwomen were taken as control. All the patients included were subjected to detailed history taking.BMI matched in cases and controls. Blood samples were taken from both cases and control ant sentfor Vitamin-D level, HbA1c, fasting blood glucose, and 2hrs postprandial glucose test. Results:Overall 78% of Indian women are vitamin D deficient in the present study. The mean maternalserum vitamin D levels were 9.25±6.07 in GDM cases and in the controls the mean is 18.11±7.86.The difference was statistically significant reflecting that the mean serum vitamin D was decreasedin women with GDM. Vitamin D levels correlated significantly with the fasting blood glucose, thefasting serum insulin, and the HbA1c levels, the P-value in all these correlations were <0.0001.Conclusions: Low maternal serum vitamin d levels were associated with gestational diabetesmellitus. There is a statistically significant negative correlation between glycemic control and vitaminD levels in serum in the whole study population.