A major study led by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine) and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has found that women who had gestational diabetes during pregnancy can greatly lower their risk of heart disease later in life by following simple healthy habits.
Gestational diabetes is a common condition where blood sugar levels become too high during pregnancy.
While it usually goes away after childbirth, it increases the risk of future health problems, including heart disease.
The new research followed more than 4,300 women from the Nurses’ Health Study II in the United States.
All of these women had experienced gestational diabetes but did not have heart disease or type 2 diabetes at the start of the study. The research team looked at how lifestyle habits influenced their health over nearly 28 years.
They found that women who stuck to five healthy habits—keeping a healthy weight, not smoking, exercising regularly, eating nutritious food, and drinking alcohol in moderation—had up to an 86% lower risk of developing heart disease.
Even more impressive, among the women who followed all five habits, not a single one had a heart attack, stroke, or other major heart issue during the entire study.
Dr. Yang Jiaxi, a Senior Research Fellow at NUS Medicine and one of the lead authors of the study, said that the results show heart disease is not something that women with gestational diabetes have to accept as unavoidable.
Making better lifestyle choices—even small changes—can really reduce the risk of serious heart problems later in life.
Another co-author, Dr. Frank Qian, emphasized that these findings highlight the need to support women in making healthy changes after pregnancy. Dr. Qian, now a heart disease specialist in Boston, explained that encouraging good habits in women with a history of gestational diabetes could prevent many early deaths due to heart disease.
In Singapore, heart disease and stroke caused almost one in three deaths in 2023. Many Asian women, including those in Singapore, are more likely to get gestational diabetes during pregnancy.
Because this condition nearly doubles the chance of developing heart disease later, the findings are especially important for the region.
The study points out that early and long-lasting efforts to maintain a healthy lifestyle—especially starting from the reproductive years—can protect a woman’s heart and overall health for decades. This includes focusing on healthy weight, good nutrition, and staying physically active.
Professor Zhang Cuilin, a senior author of the study and head of the Global Center for Asian Women’s Health at NUS Medicine, stressed how important it is to follow up with women who had high blood sugar during pregnancy. She said that supporting them to live healthier lives is key to helping them avoid not just heart disease, but also other chronic conditions.
The researchers are continuing their work to explore the best ways to help these women through new studies. They hope this research will lead to better healthcare practices and public health policies that can make a big difference in women’s lives.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that Changing blood pressure readings is a hidden sign of heart disease and common type 2 diabetes drugs may raise heart risk.
For more about heart health, please read studies about root cause of heart rhythm disorders and Warning signal from the kidneys can predict future heart failure risk.
The study is published in Journal of the American Heart Association.
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