7 September DRC - Should Women Limit Potato Consumption Before Pregnancy? September 7, 2016 By The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center 0 Women who eat more potatoes before pregnancy are more likely to develop gestational diabetes (i.e., the form of diabetes that occurs during pregnancy), a new study suggests. The study was first-authored by Dr. Wei Bao, a new faculty in the UI Department of Epidemiology and a previous postdoc fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Bao is also a member of the UI Obesity Research and Education Initiative (OREI) and the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center (FOEDRC).Potatoes are one of the most commonly consumed crops in the world. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans continue to include potatoes in the vegetable food group and encourage consumption. However, previous studies suggest that potatoes may have a detrimental effect on blood glucose levels due to their high starch content. Gestational diabetes is a common pregnancy complication that affects around 9% of all pregnancies in the United States. Gestational diabetes has both short-term and long-term health risks for the mothers and children. The association between potato consumption and risk of gestational diabetes remains unknown until the present study.Teamed up with researchers from NIH and Harvard University, Dr. Bao analyzed data from 15,632 women in the Nurses’ Health Study II over a 10-year period (1991-2001). The women had no history of gestational diabetes or chronic diseases before the index pregnancy. Consumption of potatoes and other foods was assessed every four years. Gestational diabetes was ascertained from self-reports of a physician diagnosis, which was previously validated by medical records.They found that higher total potato consumption was significantly associated with an increased risk of gestational diabetes. Though the detailed mechanisms for the observed association remain to be understood, the researchers pointed out the high starch content with high glycemic index as a possible explanation. As a result, high consumption of potatoes can result in a sharp rise in blood glucose concentrations after a meal putting stress on pancreatic islet cells.The researchers also estimated the effect of substituting of total potatoes with alternative, healthier foods. They found that substitution of two servings per week of total potatoes with the same amount of other vegetables, legumes, and whole grain foods was significantly associated with a lower risk of GDM: 9% lower risk for other vegetables, 10% for legumes, and 12% for whole grain foods.The authors cautioned, however, that because their study was an observational study rather than an intervention study, their results do not prove the cause and effect relation that potato consumption directly leads to gestational diabetes.These findings were published in the scientific journal BMJ (the British Medical Journal). Related Articles New Ways To Predict The Risk Of Gestational Diabetes DRC Director's Report - November 2017 We are pleased to announce that Dr. Wei Bao, Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, and a member of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center (FOEDRC) was recently awarded a $419,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to fund a project entitled: Pregnancy-associated microRNAs in plasma as predictors of gestational diabetes. Some of the preliminary work that contributed to this award were provided by pilot funding from the FOEDRC. DRC Director's Update - September 2019 It has long been known that increased abdominal fat, is a major risk factor for developing diabetes. A new study done by Yangbo Sun, MD, PhD, and colleagues, under supervision of Wei Bao, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and a member of the FOEDRC, has identified a concerning new and underrecognized complication of increased belly fat, namely a high-risk for premature death particularly in post-menopausal women, who might not be obese or overweight. DRC Director's Report - November 2023 A critical function of the Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center is to train new generations of diabetes researchers. To this end, since 2017, the FOEDRC has received a “T32” grant from the NIH that funds up to six annual positions for postdoctoral fellows to receive advanced training in diabetes research. Postdoctoral fellows are scientists and/or physicians who have recently received their doctorate degree and who are in the final stages of training to become independent scientists. DRC Director's Report - April 2019 In a recent study done by Wei Bao, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and member of the FOEDRC, his research team found that frequent consumption of fried foods, especially fried chicken and fried fish/shellfish, was associated with a higher risk of death from all causes and cardiovascular disease in women in the United States. Women with at least one serving per week of fried chicken had a 13% higher risk of death from all causes, and a 12% higher risk of death from cardiovascular disease, when compared with women with no consumption of fried chicken. Iowa State Eagles & SoldierStrong Partner to Donate Ekso GT Suit to Younker Rehabilitation DES MOINES, Iowa. - The Iowa State Fraternal Order of Eagles have partnered with SoldierStrong, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing advanced medical technologies to veterans, to donate an EksoGT™ exoskeleton to Younker Rehabilitation at Iowa Methodist Medical Center. The robotic exoskeleton is used in rehabilitation to help people—including veterans—who have had a stroke or spinal cord injury walk again. DRC Director's Update - June 2019 In healthy adults, blood pressure (BP) decreases during sleep at night to lower levels than during the daytime. This phenomenon is referred to as nocturnal BP “dipping” and normally dips 10-20% compared with daytime. Blunted nocturnal BP dipping has been independently associated with increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk. The prevalence of blunted nocturnal BP dipping is higher in persons with obesity and diabetes, which are traditional risk factors for CVD. Showing 0 Comment Comments are closed.