Controversy grows over redefinition of gestational diabetes

Ray Moynihan reports on the bitter battle over blood sugar levels and pregnancy

One of the freshest fights over the definition of disease is happening with gestational diabetes. A recent redefinition more than doubles the patient pool and labels up to one in five pregnant women as unwell.1 The new criteria arose at a conference in California in 2008, were published in 2010, and are now being endorsed around the world, including by the Australasian Diabetes in Pregnancy Society. Yet the expanded definition is the subject of sustained criticism and will be further scrutinised at a United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) consensus development conference, by an adjudicating panel free of members with financial or reputational conflicts of interest, to be held in Maryland in October this year.