NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Reuters Health) -- One of the challenges of pregnancy is
the glucose tolerance test, where a sickeningly sweet sugary drink is used as
part of a test for gestational diabetes. But Texas researchers have good news,
especially for pregnant candy lovers -- jelly beans appear to be an excellent
substitute for the very sweet sugar drink.
Women who consumed 28 jelly beans over 10 minutes were less likely to have
side effects such as nausea, headache and dizziness than women who drank the
sugar solution, according to a study of 136 pregnant women aged 18 to 40,
published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Gestational diabetes can cause complications for both mother and fetus, so
many women are tested for the condition in their second trimester. During the
test, women rapidly drink a sugar solution and blood samples are collected
afterwards to detect blood glucose levels.
In the study, Dr Michael E. Lamar and colleagues at Texas A&M University
Health Science Center, set out to see if a standardized dose of 28 jelly beans
providing 50 grams of simple sugar could be used as an alternative sugar source
to the 50-gram glucose beverage currently used for the test.
The researchers found no significant differences between the two sugar
sources in analysis of the blood glucose values after one hour. The group also
found side effects such as nausea, headache and dizziness were reported less
frequently by patients given jelly beans, and that women had a 3-to-1 preference
for the jelly beans over the beverage.
But whereas the jelly beans work in the one-hour screening test for
gestational diabetes, the authors do not advocate substituting jelly beans in
the next stage of testing, the diagnostic 100-g glucose challenge test.
This 3-hour test is performed where the screening test is positive, suggesting that the woman may in fact have gestational diabetes. The authors explain that the
diagnostic test requires the sugar drink because the solid nature of jelly beans
and the complex carbohydrates contained in them may change the absorption rate
of sugar and affect the test results.
Also, with only 5 cases of gestational diabetes mellitus diagnosed out of
the 136 participants tested, Lamer would like to test the use of jelly beans in
the screening test further before it comes into widespread use, to confirm that
jelly beans prove equal to the 50-g glucose beverage for diabetes detection.
"The suboptimal screening sensitivity documented in this study limits
widespread clinical applicability," they conclude, "(but) the jelly bean
challenge has immediate application for those patients unable or unwilling to
drink the 50-g glucose beverage."
