Stress and depression during pregnancy increase risk of T1D in offspring after 8 years of age

Previous data suggest that childhood stress triggers type 1 diabetes. More data on potential fetal programming by maternal stress during pregnancy needs to be collected. None of the previous studies has investigated the association between Depression/anxiety as a proxy of stress during pregnancy compared with before or after pregnancy concerning offspring risk of type 1 diabetes.

The present study was a population-based cohort including 1 807 809 offspring. Data was collected from national registries related to diagnosis/medication/ prescription for depression/anxiety in and around pregnancy and incident cases of type 1 diabetes.

The results of this research are:

• Considering exposure during pregnancy, maternal depression/anxiety increased the risk of offspring type 1 diabetes onset after, but not before, eight years of age.
• Exposure during pregnancy only had a similar association with type 1 diabetes.
• The exposure before pregnancy has no association to type 1 diabetes.
• Associations were close to the null for paternal depression/anxiety, and point estimates were above 1 in sibling comparisons, although with wide Cis.

Concluding further, they said, during pregnancy, there is a strong association between Maternal depression and anxiety with offspring type 1 diabetes.

Familial confounding cannot explain the results entirely, as indicated by Paternal negative control and sibling comparisons.

Further research is warranted to understand better the pathways through which early-life risk factors impact disease initiation and progression.

Further reading:

Smew AI, Lundholm C, Gong T, Sävendahl L, Lichtenstein P, Brew BK, Almqvist C. Maternal depression or anxiety during pregnancy and offspring type 1 diabetes: a population-based family-design cohort study. BMJ Open Diabetes Res Care. 2023 Apr;11(2):e003303. doi: 10.1136/bmjdrc-2023-003303.