Association Between Body Weight Change Before and After Delivery and Development of Nonmetabolic Syndrome: A Prospective Study.

The aim of the work was to investigate the association between body weight change before and after delivery and development of nonmetabolic syndrome in Chinese females aged ≥40 years. We selected 789 participants without metabolic syndrome randomly from a baseline survey performed in Luzhou, China in 2011. We took the group with decreasing or no increasing body mass index difference during a pregnancy as "R-Body Mass Index 1" (n=286) and divided the group with increasing body mass index difference during a pregnancy into "R-Body Mass Index 2" (n=254) and "R-Body Mass Index 3" (n=249) based upon P50. All study participants were followed up every year, and a questionnaire, physical examination, and biochemical detection were administered after 3 years. Of 789 participants, 82 nonmetabolic syndrome women developed metabolic syndrome during 3-year follow-up. The morbidity of metabolic syndrome in the R-BMI1, R-BMI2, and R-BMI3 groups was 5.2%, 11.8%, and 14.9%, respectively. Compared to the R-BMI1 group, the relative risk for R-BMI2 was 1.92 (95% confidence interval: 1.03-3.58, p=0.040) and for R-BMI3 was 2.20 (95% confidence interval: 1.20-4.03, p=0.011). After adjusting for age, BMI, WHR, baseline blood glucose, HbA1c, TG, HDL-C, SBP, DBP, age of menarche and menopause, and delivery times, the relative risks were similar to the unadjusted relative risks. In conclusion, body weight change after delivery was associated with metabolic syndrome: the higher the weight gain, the higher the risk of metabolic syndrome.