TUESDAY, Sept. 24, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- If a woman is already in a "prediabetic" state in her teen or college years, her odds for a serious complication of pregnancy later in life rises, new research shows.

Ignoring prediabetes in teenagers "may represent a missed opportunity to avert pregnancy-related complications" later, said study lead author Katharine McCarthy. She's an assistant professor of population health science and policy, and obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Her team published its findings Sept. 24 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

As the researchers explained, prediabetes occurs when blood sugar levels are higher than normal but not yet high enough to be diagnosed as type 2 diabetes. Obesity is a contributing factor to prediabetes.

Prediabetes can raise a person's odds for heart disease and stroke and is more common among Black and Hispanic Americans, McCarthy's team added.

Prior research has found that rates of prediabetes have tripled among Americans ages 12 to 19 over the past decade.

In the new study, the Mount Sinai team tracked rates of prediabetes (using blood sugar tests) among a group of 14,000 New York City residents ages 10 to 24. None of these individuals had full-blown diabetes at the time they were tested.

Having prediabetes in youth was linked to a doubling of risk of gestational diabetes -- new-onset diabetes while pregnant. Tracking blood levels of hemoglobin A1c, a measure of a person’s average blood sugar level over the prior three months, was very predictive of whether or a not a woman would get gestational diabetes, the team found.

Prediabetes in youth was also linked to an 18% rise in the risk for hypertensive disorders during pregnancy, such as gestational hypertension and preeclampsia, or preterm delivery.

Measuring a teen girl's blood for signs of prediabetes might help protect her against trouble in a later pregnancy, McCarthy's group said.

 “Our results support expanded preconception hemoglobin A1c screening as a mechanism to intervene on excess cardiometabolic risk earlier in the life course," she explained in a Mount Sinai news release.

More information

There's more on gestational diabetes at the Cleveland Clinic.

SOURCE: Mount Sinai, news release, Sept. 24, 2024