A Study of the Metabolic Pathways Affected by Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: Comparison with Type 2 Diabetes
, Christina E. Kostara 2, Eleni Bairaktari 2, Eleni Anastasiou 3 and Vasilis Tsimihodimos 4,*
Mohammad Safiqul Islam
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Diagnostics-2019981 Evaluation
This is a very interesting study that compares the metabolic pathways affected by gestational diabetes with the pathways affected by type 2 diabetes.
The manuscript is very well written, complying with all the methodological aspects, it only requires some small changes to consider its publication.
On the other hand, he considered it important that the discussion mention whether there is scientific information regarding the differences in these metabolic pathways according to the racial group to which the pregnant woman with and without gestational diabetes belongs, the type of diet, and the body mass index ( BMI) with which they start the pregnancy.
In the summary section
It is important that you mention in the abstract what the purpose of your study was
In the material and methods section
How were the patients selected?
What type of sampling was done?
How was the sample size calculated?
They consider whether the sample of patients studied represents pregnant women with gestational diabetes.
Line 108
What was the volume of blood obtained and at what time?
Line 158
It is necessary to place the complete information including the company and city.
Line 274
What does TCA mean? The cycle of tricarboxylic acids
The manuscript requires a list of abbreviations
At the end of the discussion section
What would be the perspectives of the study?
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript entitled “A study of the metabolic pathways affected by gestational diabetes mellitus. Comparison with type 2 diabetes” submitted by Spanou et al. evaluated the role of metabolic pathways in affecting gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). The author evaluated 55 metabolites in 62 GDM cases and 77 pregnant controls and found a statistically significant difference of 25 metabolites between the two groups. My recommendation regarding the manuscript are as follows.
1. In the subject subsection under Materials and Methods, the authors mentioned that GDM is defined as: plasma glucose levels: ≥ 92mg/dl at fasting state, ≥ 180 mg/dl 1-h after and ≥ 153 mg/dl 2-h after the ingestion of 75-g of glucose. But according to Table 1, the sugar levels at Fasting and after 1 and 2 hrs of OGTT of GAD cases were below the authors' claimed values. Were authors’ claim patients have diabetes? Please clarify.
2. No inclusion criteria of HbA1c or HbA1c-based GAM range were provided in the manuscript. The values of HbA1c in cases have seemed they may be nondiabetic.
3. The sample size is very small. Did the authors calculate the sample size for getting a standard statistical power?
4. 4. Some grammatical errors were found that should be corrected.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
