NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - About one in four women with diabetes that first develops during pregnancy, also called gestational diabetes, go on to develop type 2 diabetes within 15 years. And a number of specific predictors for the later development of diabetes can be identified during the gestational pregnancy.

Dr. Anna J. Lee, of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues examined data for 5,470 women with gestational diabetes and 783 women without gestational diabetes seen for postnatal follow-up at the Mercy Hospital for Women between 1971 and 2003.

The risk of type 2 diabetes increased with the length of follow-up for both groups, according to the results published in the journal Diabetes Care. After 15 years, the risk of type 2 diabetes was 25.8 percent. The risk of developing type 2 diabetes was 9.6 times greater for patients with gestational diabetes than for controls at any time during follow-up.

Factors that predicted type 2 diabetes, in order of magnitude, included insulin use during pregnancy, Asian race, greater birth weight; and higher than normal results on the 1-hour blood glucose test.

Based on these findings, Lee and colleagues conclude that "women with a history of gestational diabetes mellitus, as a group, are worthy of long-term follow-up to ameliorate their excess cardiovascular risk."