As much remains to be learned about the role of resistin during fetal life, the clinical implications of these findings await future studies and definition. However, maternal diabetes has both immediate and long-term effects on the offspring which are tied to energy management and mitochondrial function. Thus, human resistin could be a potential therapeutic target or a diagnostic marker for the short-term and long-term adverse pregnancy outcomes of diabetes during pregnancy. Future studies to determine whether the observed changes in circulating resistin persist in the postnatal period and whether they relate to indices of metabolic dysregulation are needed and are best addressed by longitudinal studies of the children born to mothers with diabetes during pregnancy. Direct proof of the role of resistin in the perinatal period would require manipulation of resistin exposure to the fetus in vivo. Such studies are perhaps best performed in non-human primates, as the biology of resistin in rodents appears to differ significantly from that in humans.