Exercise intervention during pregnancy may prevent gestational diabetes among high-risk subjects

Researchers aimed at investigating the preventive role of exercise intervention during pregnancy, in high-risk women for gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

They searched PubMed, CENTRAL, and Scopus for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) that evaluated exercise interventions during pregnancy on women at high risk for gestational diabetes mellitus. Data were combined with random effects models. Between study heterogeneity (Cochran's Q statistic) and the extent of study effects variability [I2 with 95% confidence interval (CI)] were estimated. Sensitivity analyses examined the effect of population, intervention, and study characteristics. We also evaluated the potential for publication bias.

The Results of the study are:

• Among the 1,508 high-risk women who were analyzed in 9 RCTs, 374 (24.8%) developed gestational diabetes mellitus. Women who received exercise intervention during pregnancy were less likely to develop GDM compared to those who followed the standard prenatal care.
  
• Studies with low attrition bias also showed a similar result.
• A protective effect was also supported when the analysis was limited to studies including women with low education levels; studies with exercise intervention duration of more than 20 weeks; and studies with a motivation component in the intervention
• They could not exclude large variability in study effects because the upper limit of I2 confidence interval was higher than 50% for all analyses.
• There was no conclusive evidence for small study effects

Thus, the study might support a protective effect of exercise intervention during pregnancy for high-risk women to prevent gestational diabetes mellitus. The protective result should be corroborated by large, high-quality RCTs.

Reference:

Tsironikos GI, Perivoliotis K, Bargiota A, Zintzaras E, Doxani C, Tatsioni A (2022) Effectiveness of exercise intervention during pregnancy on high-risk women for gestational diabetes mellitus prevention: A meta-analysis of published RCTs. PLoS ONE 17(8): e0272711. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272711

Keywords:

Tsironikos GI, Perivoliotis K, Bargiota A, Zintzaras E, Doxani C, Tatsioni , Effectiveness, exercise intervention, pregnancy, high-risk women, gestational, diabetes, mellitus, prevention, meta-analysis, PLoS ONE