We studied the usefulness of serum fructosamine in evaluating the control of pregnant diabetics whose abnormal metabolism must be normalized during pregnancy.
Serum fructosamine was measured in 60 pregnant diabetics, as were HbA₁ and blood glucose, every 2 or 4 weeks. Fructosamine changes in ten pregnant diabetics were evaluated postprandially. Controls were 42 normal non-pregnant women, 107 normal pregnant women (based on their 75-g GTT) and 183 non-pregnant diabetic women. The fasting fructosamine level was 24.4±1.6 μmol/g-protein (M±S. D.) in normal women. In normal pregnant women, fructosamine was 25.1±2.1 μmol/g-protein during the first trimester, which decreased slightly during the second trimester: but there were no significant changes during pregnancy. In pregnant diabetics, fructosamine levels were high during the first trimester, and decreased during the second and third trimesters in response to diabetic therapy.
Fructosamine in normalized faster than HbA₁ according to diabetic control, because it has a shorter half life than HbA₁·Moreover fructosamine does not depend on the postprandial hyperglycemia, 75-g GTT or the exogenous administration of glucose experimentally. Those findings suggest that fructosamine can serve as a useful index of control in pregnant diabetics.