Context: Fetuin-A was reported to be associated with risk of type 2 diabetes, but its association with incident gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) was less studied.
Objective: We aimed to examine the association between fetuin-A levels in early pregnancy and risk of incident GDM and to evaluate whether this association was causal.
Methods: A total of 332 pregnant women with GDM and 664 matched controls were included in this nested case-control study. Multivariable conditional logistic regression was applied to investigate the prospective association between serum fetuin-A in early pregnancy and subsequent risk of GDM. Two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis was used to examine the causal association, using summary statistics from the CHARGE Consortium and the FinnGen consortium.
Results: The mean age of the participants was 28.0 years, and the mean gestational age was 11.0 weeks (range 6-15) at enrollment. In the final model, the odds ratio (OR) for GDM comparing the extreme quartiles of fetuin-A levels was 1.78 (95% CI 1.06, 2.98; P for trend = 0.009), and the restricted cubic spline analysis indicated a linear association (P for nonlinearity = 0.83). This positive association was found in women with waist circumference <80 cm but not in those with waist circumference ≥80 cm (P for interaction = 0.04). However, MR analyses showed no evidence of a causal association with an OR of 0.91 (95% CI 0.67, 1.23) per unit increment of fetuin-A.
Conclusions: Serum fetuin-A levels in early pregnancy were positively associated with risk of GDM, particularly in those with normal waist circumference. However, we found no genetic evidence for a causal association.
Keywords: Mendelian randomization analysis; fetuin-A; gestational diabetes mellitus; nested case-control study.
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