The Childhood Environment and Adult Disease

The proceedings of a symposium on the childhood environment and adult disease held at the Ciba Foundation in May 1990. The topic was proposed by Professor David Barker, and the contributions include essays on foetal response to intra-uterine stress and critical periods in brain development.

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The Childhood Environment and Adult Disease Chairman: D.J.P. Barker 1991 A relationship between events in prenatal life or early childhood and subsequent disease, physical or mental, in adulthood has previously been difficult to pin down, and open to speculation rather than analysis. It is now possible in epidemiological studies to relate measurable aspects of neonatal health to measures of disease in adult life. This wide-ranging symposium is the first to draw together the various strands in this new research area. The links between early growth and the risk of high blood pressure, stroke and coronary heart disease in adult life are explored. Poor growth of babies is shown to be related to the inadequate growth and nutrition of mothers. Mediating factors being investigated include levels of blood cholesterol and clotting factors. The fetal response to intrauterine stress is being studied in a sheep model; other studies in primates are examining the relation between early nutrition (breast or formula feeding) and later cholesterol metabolism, with the possible disease implications.
Dietary manipulation studies in preterm babies are revealing the long-term effects of early nutrition on cardiovascular and neurodevelopmental measures. Other chapters consider the connections between early nutrition (including that of the mother and even the grandmother) and the immune system. Infections in childhood may have even longer-term effects, with evidence that the epidemiology of polio 40 years ago is being mirrored by that of motor neuron disease. Critical periods in the development of the brain and the visual system, when vulnerability to damage may be greatest, are analysed. The possible origin of schizophrenia in pathological processes in fetal and perinatal life is another instance where developmental events and adult disease (this time in the psychological arena) may be causally related. Finally, the consequences of adverse early experiences for adult psychosocial functioning are described in longitudinal studies in humans, and in studies on rhesus monkeys, in which the harmful effects of stress in infancy on adult behaviour can nevertheless be overcome by rearing by nurturant foster mothers.
Other Ciba Foundation Symposia: No 130 Molecular approaches to human polygenic disease Chairman: Sir David Weatherall 1987 ISBN 0 471 91096 1 No 149 Human genetic information: science, law and ethics Chairman: Sir Gustav Nossal 1990 ISBN 0 471 92624 8 No 152 The biology of nicotine dependence Chairman: L. L. Iversen 1990 ISBN 0 471 92688 4