A University of Iowa researcher has won a nearly $272,000 grant to study blood flow in the brains of women who were diagnosed with diabetes during pregnancy.

Women with a history of gestational diabetes have a 40% increased risk of blood-brain disorders such as stroke and a 67% increased risk of dementia compared with women without the disease.

Health care professionals face challenges treating individuals with a history of gestational diabetes because women with the disease typically do not have low insulin sensitivity or high blood glucose before and after pregnancy, despite both being primary indicators of diabetes.

Adam Corkery, a postdoctoral fellow in the Microvascular Physiology Lab at the University of Iowa, is the principal investigator and the grant recipient.

The Microvascular Physiology Lab previously had found that gestational diabetes causes dysfunction in the skin's blood vessels in otherwise healthy women.

Blood vessel dysfunction occurs when blood vessels fail to properly regulate blood flow and maintain optimal conditions for the organs and tissues that they supply, often resulting in damage to the organs and tissues, like the brain.

Corkery will investigate whether the same dysfunction can be found in blood vessels in the brains of women with a history of gestational diabetes, and, if so, what is causing it.

Blood vessel dysfunction in the brain is a major contributor to dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. If Corkery finds dysfunction in women’s brain blood vessels, it could explain why women with gestational diabetes have an elevated risk of dementia.

Corkery’s study will compare the brain blood flow of approximately 23 women with a history of gestational diabetes and 23 with no history of the disease.

Corkery’s team will increase blood flow using carbon dioxide and then monitor its flow from the neck to the brain and within the brain itself through ultrasound. A greater increase in blood flow after breathing elevated carbon dioxide will represent greater blood vessel function in the brain.

By identifying blood vessel impairments and the biological mechanisms behind dysfunction, Corkery hopes the research will lead to early intervention for women with gestational diabetes.

"These women are years postpartum and clinically normal. However, we know that a fair number statistically will develop some form of vascular disease or dementia," he says. "We want to intervene during this period when they're still clinically normal to prevent the development of disease."

The award is for three years.