Glucose levels obtained when screening for gestational diabetes can also be used to predict a woman’s risk of cardiovascular disease, a Canadian study suggests.

While patients with gestational diabetes (GDM) are known to have a higher risk of CVD risk, the researchers believe they are the first to show that “higher-end of normal” glucose levels are also associated with more CVD events.

The researchers used the medical records of more than 259,000 women who were given a screening 50g oral glucose challenge test between weeks 24 and 28 of their pregnancies between 2007 and 2015.

After excluding the 13,600 women who were diagnosed with GDM, they found that during the 3.9 years follow-up those whose one-hour post-challenge glucose level was between 7.2-7.7mmol/L had a 65% greater chance of a cardiovascular event than those with a level of 7·1 mmol/L or less.