Metabolic alterations in adulthood after intrauterine development in mothers with mild diabetes.

We studied the long-term effects of maternal diabetes mellitus on the offspring of experimentally induced diabetic Wistar rats. When stressed by an intravenous glucose load, the adult female offspring had impaired glucose tolerance and developed gestational diabetes mellitus when pregnant. Our results show that even mild diabetes mellitus induces an abnormal intrauterine milieu that causes morphological and functional changes in fetal development with consequences for later life.