Glycemic Index and Pregnancy: A Systematic Literature Review

Table 2

Characteristics and outcome measures of studies examining the association between glycemic index/glycemic load and pregnancy outcomes in pregnancies complicated by gestational diabetes mellitus.

Study	Study characteristics	Exposure variables	Outcome variables	Summary of findings
Epidemiological studies
Zhang et al. [21] 2006	𝑛=13,110; Mean age: 31.5 y; Dietary assessment: 133-item semiquantitative FFQ, capturing prepregnancy dietary pattern	GI in quintiles Q1: <51 versus Q5: >57; GL in quintiles; Q1: <104 versus; Q5: >138	Incidence of GDM (𝑛=758)	Subjects with dietary GI in the highest quintile had a 30% increased risk of developing GDM while those in the highest quintile of GL had a 61% increased risk. There was also a significant increase in risk for increasing dietary GL (𝑃=.03) while that for dietary GI was nonsignificant (𝑃=.07)
Radesky et al. [22] 2008	𝑛=1,733; 91 incidences of GDM; Mean age: 31.5 y; Dietary assessment: 133-item semiquantitative FFQ, at 5–25.6 weeks to capture prepregnancy dietary pattern	Per 22 units increase of GL	Incidence of GDM (𝑛=91)	No association between GDM risk and prepregnancy GL
Intervention study
Moses et al. [23] 2009	𝑛=63; Mean age: 31.0 y; Mean gestation weeks at baseline: 30.1 weeks	Low-GI diet (GI=48) versus high-GI diet (GI=56)	Need for insulin	Higher proportion (59% versus 29%; 𝑃=.023) of women following the high-GI diet required insulin for optimal GDM management. Switching from high-GI to low-GI diet helped 47.4% of these women avoid insulin. No significant differences in key fetal and obstetric outcomes were found.

GDM: gestational diabetes mellitus; FFQ: food frequency questionnaire.