The origins of the developmental origins hypothesis and the role of postnatal environments: response to Koletzko.
نویسنده
چکیده
Professor Koletzko’s recent letter to the editor [AJHB 17(3): 381–382] was in reference to the journal volume devoted to the 2004 Human Biology Association plenary session, ‘‘The fetal origins of developmental plasticity: life history, adaptation, and disease’’ [AJHB 17(1)]. Koletzko raises questions about the intellectual lineage of the hypothesis that early environments have lasting effects on health. He further suggests that the volume’s contributions ‘‘only focus on fetal programming’’ (p. 381) and thereby ignore the importance of the postnatal environment to the development of cardiovascular risk. As one of the organizers of the session and a co-editor of that volume, I would point out that our aim was to promote evolutionary approaches to this literature, which until recently has been dominated by biomedical models of the proximate determinants of disease (Kuzawa and Pike, 2005). I would further point out that many of the volume’s contributions did in fact discuss the importance of both preand postnatal environments as long-term influences on life history, function, and health. That said, the letter does raise several general issues that deserve a thoughtful response. Koletzko suggests that the developmental origins hypothesis should be attributed to Günter Dörner, whose important work on the organizational effects of prenatal hormones on the developing brain included speculations on the possible long-term health effects of these processes, including a connection between early overnutrition and later obesity (Dörner, 1975). In fact, the hypothesis that early environmental deprivation might condition future health and mortality was first proposed much earlier by Kermack, McKendrick, and McKinlay, who documented birth cohort effects on mortality in Sweden, England, and Wales. In a 1934 article published in the Lancet, they noted that secular trends in mortality were predicted by year of birth and concluded that ‘‘the expectation of life was determined by the conditions which existed during the child’s earlier years,’’ an observation that confirmed and extended work by several actuaries published in 1927 (Smith and Kuh, 2001). Forsdahl (1977, 1978) later provided additional support for this hypothesis from analysis of Norwegian demographic data and expanded the focus specifically to cardiovascular risk factors. Ounsted and colleagues (1985) may have been the first to report an inverse relationship between birth weight and later blood pressure, while a decade prior, Ravelli and colleagues (1976) found an increased risk of adult obesity among individuals exposed to the Dutch Famine during the first trimester of pregnancy. In a lesser-known, earlier study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Rashad and Mi (1975) reported a relationship between fingerprint ridge counts and myocardial infarction, leading them to propose an influence of prenatal factors on cardiovascular disease risk. Clearly, many researchers have independently discovered similar relationships, and in some cases have converged upon similar hypotheses. Barker and collaborators (1989) have done much to develop and promote the currently favored hypothesis, which draws heavily upon prior research into such factors as critical period effects of nutrition on early growth (Winick and Noble, 1966), maternal constraint on offspring birth size (Walton and Hammond, 1938), organizational effects of prenatal hormonal exposures (Dörner, 1975), the hormonal and nutritional regulation of placental and fetal growth (Gluckman, 1986), and catch-up growth (Prader et al., 1963). The field has recently settled on the label ‘‘developmental origins of health and disease’’ (DOHaD), which seems an appropriate descriptor that acknowledges not only the prenatal but also the postnatal contributions to long-term health. On this note, it would be difficult not to agree with Koletzko’s suggestion that developmental processes after birth continue to have implications for adult health, a point made by multiple contributors to the AJHB volume. The relative importance of exposures at different ages has been a subject of debate for some time. Lucas and colleagues (1999) noted that when the relationship between small birth size and later CVD risk is significant only after holding adult size constant, this may be capturing an effect of the change in size between the two measurements, or postnatal centile crossing. Singhal
منابع مشابه
Cell Timer/Cell Clock
Like the biological clock in the body, replication of each cell type (even different cells of the same organism) follows a timing program. Abnormal function of this timer could be an alarm for a disease like cancer. DNA replication starts from a specific point on the chromosome that is called the origin of replication. In contrast to prokaryotes in which DNA replication starts from a single ...
متن کاملSearching for the Origins of Schwab's Deliberative Curriculum Theory in the Thoughts of Aristotle, Dewey and Habermas
The main purpose of this study is exploring the roots and foundations of Schwab’s deliberative theory in curriculum. Therefore, after examining this theory in introduction, its foundations and origins were investigated. According to this, basic assumptions of this theory are practical and quasi practical arts, eclectic arts, commonplace and collective decision. Aristotle’s distinction between i...
متن کاملAre clinical measures influenced by various ethnic origins in Iranian patients with ankylosing spondylitis?: A pilot study
Background: Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) may manifest with heterogeneous patterns according to ethnic origins. The objectives of this study were to describe the influence of various Iranian ethnic origins on clinical measures in patients with AS. Methods: 0ne hundred sixty-three AS patients diagnosed by modified New York 1984 criteria were enrolled consecutively in a cross-sectional study. The ...
متن کاملA Study on the Origins of Identification among the High-School Female Students in Khalkhal
This research studies the origins of identity among the female students in Khalkhal high-schools in 2012-2013. Data was gathered through the survey method (questionnaires) and the library method. The dependent variable was the study of identity seeking, but the independent variable includes the degree of religious orientation, social status of the family, the access to foreign networks, the sol...
متن کاملA Comparative Study of the Historical Origins of the Emergence of the Tafkik and Akhbari Schools
The present paper is a comparative study of the historical origins of the emergence of the two Tafkik (Khorasan School of Gnostic Knowledge) and Akhbari schools. This paper is a prerequisite and an introduction to a simultaneous examination of the principles of Quranic interpretation in these two schools. In recent years, some research papers have named the Tafkik School a neo-Akhbari school an...
متن کاملذخیره در منابع من
با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید
عنوان ژورنال:
- American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council
دوره 17 5 شماره
صفحات -
تاریخ انتشار 2005