Insulin Mediated Blood Flow Response During Pregnancy

Pregnancy elicits an insulin resistant like state, which appears to be independent of pre-pregnancy health status. The vasculature within skeletal muscle is insulin responsive and insulin mediated vasodilatation of these vessels has been shown to account for up to 40% of glucose uptake. However, it is unknown if impaired insulin mediated vasodilation is a mechanism regulating insulin resistance during pregnancy. Thus, we examined the femoral artery blood flow response via Doppler Ultrasound during an oral glucose tolerance test (75 grams) in 3 pregnant (pre-pregnancy BMI: 26.2±1.7) women and 2 non-pregnant women (BMI:23.1±4.8). The femoral artery blood flow response was not significantly different between the non-pregnant and pregnant women when examining absolute and percent change to peak blood flow (p\u3e0.05). Thus, in this small pilot study, it appears that insulin mediated blood flow is not regulating the impaired glucose tolerance in pregnant women. However, given that currently in this study we have only recruited 3 pregnant and 2 non-pregnant women, future studies aim to bolster these numbers