Gestational diabetes, a form of glucose intolerance during pregnancy, occurs primarily in women who already had obesity and added more weight. It not only carries immediate pregnancy risks but increases the chance of future heart disease for both the mother and the child. 

And it has gone up every year since 2016, according a new analysis of more than 12 million U.S. births from the National Center for Health Statistics; up 36 percent during the study period. Pregnancy is simply a trigger for something likely to happen eventually, due to poor energy balance among more women. They eat far more than they burn with exercise, which leads to weight gain and risks of many lifestyle diseases only exceeded by alcohol and cigarettes.



The increase from 58 to 79 cases per 1,000 births was seen across every racial and ethnic group and the authors point to poor diet/exercise levels among young people. Though the increase was in every group, women of indigenous American (137 per 1,000), indigenous Hawaiian (126 per 1,000), and Pacific Islander groups had substantially higher gestational diabetes rates than the rest. Though Asians are considered by the alternative medicine community to be healthier than White people, they were at 131 per 1,000. Black women were the lowest, with 67 per 1,000.

By the time of pregnancy, quick fixes like a GLP-1 medication are too late so the authors recommened more behaviorial efforts to prevent the issue before it becomes a health issue.

Citation: Lam EL, Walker JM, Wang MC, Venkatesh KK, Khan SS, Shah NS. Gestational Diabetes in the US From 2016 to 2024. JAMA Intern Med. Published online December 29, 2025. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2...