Grant: Catalyst Grant-Clinical Interventions for Cardiovasc Disease:Enhancing effect...

Some women develop diabetes during pregnancy. This usually gets better after delivery but is a sign that they may develop diabetes later in life. Diabetes in pregnancy is therefore a good reason to become more active, adopt a healthy diet, and see your doctor regularly- to prevent diabetes in the future. Many women say that doing these things is hard because they do not have enough support, encouragement, or time. We would like to help women with diabetes in pregnancy improve their dietary habits and reduce their chances of developing diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. We have been studying a combination of cooking lessons and dietary education on weight change in adults with diabetes. About one third lose a clinically important amount of weight in our pilot studies. We would like to adapt this approach to women with a history of diabetes in pregnancy. These women are younger than women with established diabetes and therefore adoption of healthy eating habits may actually help prevent diabetes. We will measure how much their resistance to the action of the hormone insulin changes during the study. We will also look at changes in their weight, blood pressure, and dietary habits. If this approach seems to have potential to work, we will study it in more detail through a future randomized controlled trial. Ultimately, our work will lead to programs targeting women with a history of diabetes in pregnancy.