Perinatal programming of obesity: An introduction to the topic

Abstract

A new paradigm for obesity prevention has emerged from the idea that nutritional and other environmental factors in early life have a profound influence on lifelong health. This notion is gaining increasingly great interest since the development of Barker's hypothesis of the "fetal origin of adult diseases" (Barker, 1990). A number of human epidemiology and animal model studies have shown that nutritional conditions during critical stages of development affect susceptibility to chronic diseases in adulthood, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, type II diabetes, and osteoporosis (Ong and Dunger, 2004; Remacle et al., 2004; Novak et al., 2006). Interactions between pre- and postnatal environment have also been described. For instance, accelerated postnatal growth after fetal growth restriction (the so-called "catch-up" growth) has been associated with adverse outcomes in later life (Eriksson et al., 1999; Dulloo et al., 2006). © 2013 Pico and Palou.