Response to Medical Nutritional Therapy and Need for Pharmacological Therapy in Women with Gestational Diabetes.

OBJECTIVE: We assessed if the initial response to medical nutritional therapy (MNT) can help predict the need for pharmacological therapy in women with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

STUDY DESIGN: We identified 1,174 women with GDM who underwent standardized dietary counseling and reported glucose values from the first week of MNT. We compared women who required pharmacological therapy with those who did not use bivariate statistics, and used multivariable logistic regression modeling to assess for factors predicting the need for pharmacological therapy.

RESULTS: We identified 819 women (69.8%) who needed pharmacological therapy. They had higher prepregnancy body mass index, higher rates of GDM diagnosis before 24 weeks, and higher oral glucose tolerance test values. After adjustment for covariates, age (odds ratio [OR]: 1.04; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.01-1.08), obesity (OR: 2.49; 95% CI: 1.70-3.66), and ≥33% of abnormal glucose values from the first week of MNT (OR: 13.84; 95% CI: 9.4-20.20) were associated with the need for pharmacological therapy. Area under the curve of the regression model was 0.83, with a sensitivity of 72.2%, a specificity of 86.8%, and a positive predictive value of 92.5%.

CONCLUSION: Glucose values from the first week of MNT were the strongest predictor of needing pharmacological therapy. Further studies are needed to define metabolic predictors of response to MNT in women with GDM.