Background: There is a certain degree of peripheral cell resistance to insulin in the physiopathology of gestational diabetes. These disturbances may persist following pregnancy giving place to secondary hyperinsulinism. Insulin exerts a trophic action on the ovary and favors the production of androgens. The aim of this study was to verify whether the patients diagnosed of gestational diabetes present androgenic alterations following pregnancy. The existence of a correlation between the values of insulin and androgens was analyzed.
Methods: Fifty-one patients were studied. The study group (n = 297) was composed of patients diagnosed of gestational diabetes during their last week of pregnancy. The control group (n = 24) included patients with normal carbohydrate tolerance. The basal values of insulin, glucose, androstenedione, testosterone and SHBG were determined in a postmenstrual phase.
Results: Insulin was found to be higher in the study group (78.1 +/- 32.9 pmol/1 vs 63.0 +/- 27.6 pmol/1) although the differences were not significant. The insulin/glucose ratio was significantly higher in the study group (18.1 +/- 8.0 vs 13.9 +/- 7.7; p less than 0.05). Basal insulin and the insulin/glucose ratio were comparable among the obese and non obese patients of both groups. The remaining parameters studied dit not present any significant differences. No significant associations were observed between the values of insulin and insulin/glucose with the androgenic hormonal parameters.
Conclusions: No elevated androgenic profile was observed in the women with previous gestational diabetes. The use of insulin and insulin/glucose values as indicators of insulin resistance did not demonstrate any correlation with the androgenic parameters.