Uric acid and risk of gestational diabetes mellitus: an observational study and mendelian randomization analysis

Our aim was to explore the relationship between serum uric acid (UA) levels in early pregnancy and the development of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), and to further explore whether there is a causal relationship.

684 pregnant women with GDM and 1162 pregnant women without GDM participated in this study. 311 pregnant women with GDM and 311 matched controls were enrolled in a 1:1 case-control study. We used conditional logistic regression to explore the relationship between UA levels and the risk of developing GDM. The causal relationship between the two was examined by two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analysis.

In the 1:1 matched population, the odds ratio (OR) of developing GDM compared with the extreme tertiles of UA levels was 1.967 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.475–2.625; P < 0.001). Restricted cubic spline analyses showed a linear relationship between UA and GDM when UA exceeded 222 µmol/L. GDM and UA levels maintained a statistically significant positive correlation in different stratified regression analyses (P < 0.001). However, no evidence of a causal relationship between uric acid and GDM was found by MR analyses with an OR of 1.06 (95% CI: 0.91–1.25) per unit increase in UA.

There is a positive correlation between UA levels in early pregnancy and the subsequent risk of developing GDM. However, no genetic evidence was found to support a cause-effect relationship between UA and GDM.