title: Early-Life Nutritional Programming of Health and Disease in The Gambia.
abstract: Exposures during early life are increasingly being recognised as factors that play an important role in the aetiology of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The "Developmental Origins of Health and Disease" (DOHaD) hypothesis asserts that adverse early-life exposures - most notably unbalanced nutrition - leads to an increased risk for a range of NCDs and that disease risk is highest when there is a "mismatch" between the early- and later-life environments. Thus, the DOHaD hypothesis would predict highest risk in settings undergoing a rapid nutrition transition.
  
  
  
  We investigated the link between early-life nutritional exposures and long-term health in rural Gambia, West Africa. Using demographic data dating back to the 1940s, the follow-up of randomised controlled trials of nutritional supplementation in pregnancy, and the "experiment of nature" that seasonality in this region provides, we 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. Key Messages: Our work in rural Gambia suggests that in populations with high rates of under-nutrition in early life, the immune system may be sensitive to nutritional deficiencies early in life, resulting in a greater susceptibility to infection-related morbidity and mortality.
authors.affiliation: Division of Women's Health, King's College London, London, UK.
authors.forename: Sophie E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Moore
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005714:Gambia; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007227:Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena / Q000502:physiology*; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D044342:Malnutrition / Q000150:complications*; D039382:Maternal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena / Q000502:physiology*; D009752:Nutritional Status; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects / Q000209:etiology*; D012424:Rural Population
keywords: Developmental origins of health and disease; Gambia; Human nutrition; Immunology and inflammation; Reproduction/pregnancy/lactation