2023-08-14 15:15:32
Gestational diabetes mellitus is a pathology that affects many women. In countries like Argentina, it has a prevalence of between 6 and 13%. In the field of Medicine, prevalence is a measure of the total number of people in a specified group who have (or had) a certain disease, condition, or risk factor at a specific time, or during a specified period.
Gestational diabetes, or diabetes during pregnancy, is due to carbohydrate intolerance. Hormonal and physiological changes during this stage try to meet the glucose needs of both the mother and the fetus. In some women, this deregulation in the mechanism ends up triggering this pathology.
Due to its variable severity, its diagnosis during pregnancy is essential in the first place. And secondly, the corresponding treatment.
Regarding the latter, Oscar Robledo Foschiatti, a medical student at the Universidad Nacional del Nordeste (UNNE) in Argentina, agreed to a Scholarship to Encourage Scientific Vocations (EVC-CIN) with the proposal to investigate an enriched diet in “extra virgin olive oil” in women with gestational diabetes, in order to improve maternal health and prevent complications in the perinatal period.
The research, which is under the direction of Dr. Elba Mirta Morales, a professor at the UNNE School of Medicine, seeks to determine the capacity of the treatment not only to prevent maternal-neonatal complications, but also to reduce the need for insulin therapy, improve maternal metabolic status, as well as demonstrate its cost.
From left to right: Dr. Elba Morales, the student Oscar Robledo Foschiatti and Dr. Silvia Lapertosa. (Photo: National University of the Northeast / Argentina Investiga)
The work carried out by Foschiatti is based on studies carried out outside of pregnancy. They show how diets rich in extra virgin olive oil prevent cardiovascular risk in the general population, as well as having antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties in multiple pathologies.
However, in pregnancy, there are few studies that show the ability of olive oil supplementation as the main component of the Mediterranean diet to reduce the incidence of gestational diabetes. Perhaps the most advanced antecedent at the experimental level is the one carried out by the co-director of the project, Dr. Alicia Jawerbaum, a CONICET researcher, and Dr. Silvia Lapertosa. Using murine models (mice) with diabetes and pregnancy, she demonstrated the ability of a diet based on extra virgin olive oil to nutrigenomically regulate PPAR nuclear receptors.
These types of receptors are in charge of controlling the metabolic use of glucose and their activation potentiates the effects of insulin. Consequently, this laboratory work with experimental models allowed us to verify that the diet based on olive oil allows the regulation of metabolic, pro-oxidant and pro-inflammatory parameters at the embryonic, fetal, placental and postnatal level.
Methodology
Foschiatti will evaluate the effect of the daily addition of three tablespoons (36 g) of uncooked extra virgin olive oil in women with gestational diabetes.
This is a multicenter, prospective (it involves a group of people with a common pathology) and randomized study, in which 120 patients diagnosed with gestational diabetes will be evaluated, 60 of whom will undergo treatment.
The patients who join the study are over 18 years of age who are in the 29th week of pregnancy and diagnosed with gestational diabetes. After the pertinent explanation about the study, the reading of the information sheet for the patient and the signing of the consent, they will carry out an initial consultation with the nutrition service.
They are randomly assigned to a dietary treatment group (with or without the addition of 36 grams of extra virgin olive oil). All patients belonging to the group with added olive oil will be instructed to take three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil daily. The added oil must be consumed without cooking, in the main meals: lunches and dinners. No other intervention will be performed on the patients.
All patients are evaluated throughout the study by nutritionists, with a minimum monthly frequency. The research has the approval of the Ethics Committee of all the centers where it will be carried out. (Source: Juan Monzón Gramajo / National University of the Northeast / Argentina Investiga)
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