Increasing the quality of life from womb to grave: the importance of pregnancy and birth cohorts.
Epigenetics is revealing how "nature is nurtured", with environmental factors such as nutrition, environmental neurotoxicants, and psychological stress influencing DNA expression. In this current opinion paper, we argue that understanding the dynamic interplay between the genome acquired at conception and environmental exposures throughout life requires pregnancy and birth cohorts, and that greater Canadian national commitment to the infrastructure needed for sustaining such cohorts is warranted. We present a framework that is now being implemented in Alberta.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB T3B 6A8, Canada. bonnie.kaplan@albertahealthservices.ca
Bonnie J
BJ
Kaplan
Brenda M
BM
Leung
Gerald F
GF
Giesbrecht
Catherine J
CJ
Field
Francois P
FP
Bernier
Suzanne
S
Tough
Xinjie
X
Cui
Deborah
D
Dewey
D000375:Aging; D000416:Alberta; D002170:Canada; D015331:Cohort Studies; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D057890:Epigenomics / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008429:Maternal Welfare; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D011788:Quality of Life