en public specific orginal article <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:10.0pt"><span style="line-height:107%"><span new="" roman="" style="font-family:" times=""><span style="letter-spacing:-.1pt">Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), diabetes first recognized during pregnancy, is associated with complications for mothers and their offspring. This study aimed to identify empirically-derived dietary patterns in pregnant women and their associations with GDM. <b>Methods: </b>A total of 274 pregnant women (138 women with GDM and 136 controls) participated in this case-control study. Anthropometric measurements were performed for all the participants. The participants dietary intake data&nbsp;&nbsp; was &nbsp;collected via a valid food frequency questionnaire. The major dietary patterns were obtained via principal component analysis (PCA) based on participants&rsquo; actual food consumption data. The participants were divided into tertiles based on&nbsp; their adherence to each dietary pattern and the associations between dietary patterns and GDM were investigated via multivariate logistic regression. <b>Results:</b>&nbsp; The findings revealed three major dietary patterns. Adherence to the &ldquo;traditional pattern&rdquo; was associated with an increased risk of GDM. This association remained significant after adjusting for all confounding factors (highest vs. lowest tertile: OR=3.44, 95% CI=1.54-7.69, <i>P-trend</i>=0.001). Similarly, women in the third tertile of the &ldquo;western pattern&rdquo; had an elevated risk of GDM compared with those in the first tertile (third vs. first tertile: OR=1.96, 95% CI=1.02-3.80, <i>P-trend</i>=0.011). In contrast, participants who adhered to a healthy pattern had a negative association with GDM risk (after adjustment <i>P-trend</i><0.001). <b>Conclusions: </b>This study demonstrates that&nbsp;dietary patterns of empirically-derived&nbsp;prepregnancy significantly influence the risk of GDM. These findings underscore the importance of targeted nutritional counseling and interventions before pregnancy to mitigate GDM risk and promote maternal and fetal health.</span></span></span></span></div> Pregnancy, Dietary patterns, Gestational diabetes, Food frequency questionnaire. 133 141 http://jnfs.ssu.ac.ir/browse.php?a_code=A-10-1513-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Anahita Mansoori 0000-0003-2935- 589 No Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases Research Center, Clinical Sciences Research Institute, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran Masoume Gharang No Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases Research Center, Clinical Sciences Research Institute, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran. Masoud Veissi m_veissi@yahoo.com 0000-0001-9395-808X Yes Nutrition and Metabolic Diseases Research Center, Clinical Sciences Research Institute, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran Reyhaneh Fateh No Obstetrics and Gynecology Department, Abadan University of Medical Sciences, Abadan, Iran.