Barker Hypothesis, maternal fetal programming and human health Contributed by Michael Joyner
Epidemiologic and anthropological studies in humans have
shown that maternal (and thus fetal) under or over nutrition
can have implications for the lifelong health of the
offspring especially as it relates to metabolic regulation
and blood pressure.
For example fetal under or over nutrition can
increase the risk of obesity, hypertension and diabetes in
the offspring especially if they are subsequently exposed to
an environment with plentiful food.
Importantly, these effects can be multigenerational
even in the absence of in utero nutritional stress.
Additionally, these population based observations
have been confirmed in animal models.
These multigenerational effects are not the result of
specific changes in the sequences of DNA that code for
proteins important in the regulation of metabolism and blood
pressure.
They highlight the limitations of the DNA centric view of
human phenotypic variation and are a key example of soft
inheritance.
They emphasize the idea that complex multidirectional
interactions between the environment, behavior,
physiological regulation and adaptation, and the genome
explain human phenotypic variation.
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The MUSIC of Life: Biology Beyond the Genome ©Denis Noble |