Background: The relationship between serum selenium level and gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is controversial. The purpose is to update and summarize previous studies to understand the relationship in more detail.
Methods: PubMed, The Cochrane Library, EMBASE, Web of science, CNKI, WANFANG DATA and Cqvip were searched for studies published up to 3 September 2021. The random-effects model was used to measure the combined estimation. The overall effect was reported in a standard mean difference (SMD) and 95% confidence interval (95% CI). All data were analysed by Review Manager 5.4.
Results: Twenty-seven studies involving 1588 patients with GDM and 2450 healthy pregnant women contributed to this meta-analysis. Selenium level was significantly lower in women with GDM than those without GDM (SMD = -1.29; 95% CI: -1.60 to -0.97, p < 0.00001). Subgroup analyses showed that such trend was consistent within the non-European population (Asia: SMD = -1.44; 95% CI: -1.79 to -1.08, p < 0.00001; Africa: SMD = -2.62; 95% CI: -4.50 to -0.74, p = 0.006) and in the second and third trimesters (the second trimester: SMD = -1.41; 95% CI: -1.82 to -0.99, p < 0.00001; the third trimester: SMD = -1.54; 95% CI: -2.09 to -0.98, p < 0.00001), but not within the European population (SMD = -0.47; 95% CI: -1.09 to 0.16, p = 0.14) or in the first trimester (SMD = -0.52; 95% CI: -1.13 to 0.10, p = 0.10).
Conclusions: This meta-analysis showed that the serum selenium level of patients with GDM was lower than that in healthy pregnant women, especially within the non-European population and in the second and third trimesters.
Keywords: gestational diabetes mellitus; meta-analysis; pregnancy; selenium.
© 2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.