Dynamic thiol/disulfide homeostasis in gestational diabetes mellitus: Is it related with adverse perinatal outcomes?

Abstract

Objective: Aims of the study is to specify the significance of thiol/disulfide homeostasis in the aspect of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) and GDM-related complications.
 Material and Methods: This study is a prospective review of the data of 61 healthy and non-pregnant women, 58 healthy pregnant women, and 62 pregnant women with GDM.
 Results: The patients with gestational diabetes mellitus had significantly higher disulfide/native thiol and disulfide/total thiol concentrations than non-pregnant patients (p<0.001 for both) and healthy pregnant patients (p: 0.015 and p: 0.018, respectively). Besides, in GDM group had significantly lower native thiol/total thiol concentrations than non-pregnant patients and healthy pregnant patients (p<0.001 and p: 0.016, respectively). There were positive and significant correlations between disulfide levels and HbA1c concentrations (r=0.26, p: 0.042), and between disulfide and oral glucose tolerance test first hour concentrations (r=0.26, p: 0.039). The receiver operating characteristic curve analyses for native thiol, total thiol, and disulfide were unable to predict adverse perinatal outcomes in this cohort.
 Conclusion: The significantly higher concentrations of disulfide/native thiol and disulfide/total thiol in women with GDM could be considered as the presence of increased oxidative stress. However, these markers failed to predict adverse perinatal outcomes.
 Keywords: gestational diabetes mellitus; oxidative stress; perinatal outcome; pregnancy; thiol/disulfide homeostasis