by Claudia Boyd-Barrett posted in Pregnancy

If you got your first period when you were 11 years old or younger, you may want to be extra diligent about taking steps to prevent gestational diabetes.
A new study by researchers in Australia suggests women who began menstruating early are at greater risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy.
Researchers analyzed data on almost 5,000 women involved in a long-term study on women?s health between 2000 and 2012. The women in the study had at least one pregnancy during the study period and reported whether they?d had a gestational diabetes diagnosis, and when they had their first period. None of the women had a history of Type-2 or gestational diabetes before the study started.
About 7.5 percent of the women reported a gestational diabetes diagnosis during the study. Women who got their first period at or before age 11 were 50 percent more likely to develop gestational diabetes than women who started their periods at age 13. This was after researchers accounted for other factors that can influence gestational diabetes risk, such as weight, physical activity level, and the hormonal condition polycystic ovarian syndrome.
More research is needed to figure out why early periods might influence gestational diabetes risk, the authors said, but they suggested it could have to do with hormonal changes. Girls who start their periods early are at greater risk of being overweight and obese, which in turn is a risk for gestational diabete...