Journal
JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL ORIGINS OF HEALTH AND DISEASE
Volume 7, Issue 2, Pages 123-131Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S2040174415007199
Keywords
DOHaD; epigenetics; Gambia; immune programming; sub-Saharan Africa
Categories
Funding
- UK Department for International Development (DFID) under MRC/DFID
- [MC_UP_1005/1]
- [MC-A760-5QX00]
- MRC [MC_U123261345, MC_U123292701, MC_UP_1005/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Medical Research Council [MC_UP_1005/1, MC_U123292701, MC_U123261345] Funding Source: researchfish
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Exposures during the early life (periconceptional, prenatal and early postnatal) period are increasingly recognized as playing an important role in the aetiology of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCD), including coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension, Type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis. The 'Developmental Origins of Health and Disease' (DOHaD) hypothesis states that these disorders originate through unbalanced nutrition early in life and risk is highest when there is a 'mismatch' between the early-and later-life environments. Thus, the DOHaD hypothesis would predict highest risk in countries where an excess of infants are born with low birth weight and where there is a rapid transition to nutritional adequacy or excess in adulthood. Here, I will review data from work conducted in rural Gambia, West Africa. Using demographic data dating back to the 1940s, the follow-up of randomized controlled trials of nutritional supplementation in pregnancy and the 'experiment of nature' that seasonality in this region provides, we have investigated the DOHaD hypothesis in a population with high rates of maternal and infant under-nutrition, a high burden from infectious disease, and an emerging risk of NCDs.
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