Contents:

• Executive summary
• What is diabetes?
• Type 1 diabetes
• Type 2 diabetes
• Gestational diabetes
• Metabolic syndrome
• Pre-diabetes
• Common health complications
• Why do people become diabetic?
• Genetics
• Lifestyle and environmental factors
• Life with diabetes
• Classical approach to treatment
• Medication
• Type 1 diabetes
• Type 2 diabetes
• Diet
• How well does it work?
• The D-Diet
• Basic principles of the D-Diet
• Why and how it works
• The D-Diet nutrition basics
• Conclusion
• References

Gestational diabetes

This type of diabetes appears in women during pregnancy, usually after the first trimester, but mostly disappears when the pregnancy terminates. In most cases, it arises because the body cannot produce enough insulin for both mother and baby. However, if diabetes occurs during the first trimester, the condition is likely to have existed already before the pregnancy and
may continue after it.

Being overweight or obese is a critical factor in contracting type 2 diabetes and puts people at higher risk, so it follows that the same principle applies to pregnant women.

Gestational diabetes affects up to five per cent of all pregnancies (Lancet, 2008). Those women who developed gestational diabetes which subsequently disappeared, are at an increased risk (about 30 per cent) of the disease reappearing later in life (Girling
and Dornhorst, 2004).