Panuganti, Pranati L.Hinkle, Stefanie N.Rawal, ShristiGrunnet, Louise G.Lin, YuanLiu, AiyiThuesen, Anne C.B.Ley, Sylvia H.Olesen, Sjurdur F.Zhang, Cuilin2019-05-102019-05-102018-07-21Panuganti, P. L., Hinkle, S. N., Rawal, S., Grunnet, L. G., Lin, Y., Liu, A., … Zhang, C. (2018). Lactation Duration and Long-Term Thyroid Function: A Study among Women with Gestational Diabetes. Nutrients, 10(7), 938. doi:10.3390/nu10070938https://hdl.handle.net/1805/19231Lactation is associated with reduced postpartum weight retention and a lower risk of several cardiometabolic disorders in population-based studies. We examined the association between lactation and long-term thyroid function among women with history of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), a high-risk population for subsequent metabolic complications. The study included 550 women who developed GDM in the Danish National Birth Cohort (1996⁻2002) and followed-up in the Diabetes & Women's Health Study (2012⁻2014). We assessed adjusted associations between cumulative lactation duration and concentrations of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), free triiodothyronine (fT3), and free thyroxine (fT4) measured at follow-up. Women with longer cumulative lactation duration tended to have higher fT3 levels (adjusted β and 95% confidence interval (CI) for ≥12 months vs. none: 0.19 (0.03⁻0.36); p-trend = 0.05). When restricted to women with a single lifetime pregnancy to control for parity (n = 70), women who lactated for >6 months (vs. none) had higher fT3 levels (0.46 pmol/L (0.12⁻0.80); p-trend = 0.02) and a higher fT3:fT4 ratio (0.61 (0.17⁻1.05); p-trend = 0.007). Our findings suggested that a longer duration of lactation may be related to greater serum fT3 levels and fT3:fT4 ratio 9⁻16 years postpartum among Danish women with a history of GDM. The association was particularly pronounced among women who only had one lifetime pregnancy.en-USAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesGDMLactationThyroidTriiodothyronineThyroxineThyroid antibodiesArticle