BACKGROUND Previous epidemiologic studies have reported famine exposure during early life association with overweight or obesity in adulthood, but a consistent perspective has not been established to date. PURPOSE To determine, by conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis, whether exposure to famine could increase body mass index (BMI) in adult or not, and assess the association betwee...

The introductory article to the special issue “Empire, Colonialism, and Famine in Nineteenth Twentieth Centuries” begins by pointing some recent literature on famine theory, where stress has been made responses of authorities political nature modern famines. Literature connection between imperial policies, colonial rule, famines is also briefly discussed. Soviet Union treated as an empire essay...

BACKGROUND Adverse intrauterine conditions are known to be associated with an increased risk of chronic diseases in adult life. Previously, we showed that prenatal famine exposure increased the incidence of cardiovascular and metabolic disease in adulthood. OBJECTIVE We examined the association between prenatal famine exposure and adult mortality. DESIGN We studied adult mortality among 199...

This paper presents new facts about China’s Great Famine and develops a theory of famine to explain them. First, in 1959, when the famine began, food production was almost three times more than population subsistence needs. Second, we uncover a very surprising fact: regions with higher per capita food production that year suffered higher famine mortality rates, a reversal of the typically negat...

OBJECTIVES Famine exposure in utero can 'programme' an individual towards type 2 diabetes and obesity in later life. We sought to identify, (1) whether Bangladeshis exposed to famine during developmental life are programmed towards diabetes and obesity, (2) whether this programming was specific to gestational or postnatal exposure windows and (3) whether epigenetic differences were associated w...

We assemble the Irish industrial data currently available for years 1800–1921, period during which entire island was in a political union with Great Britain, and construct an annual index of output 1800–1913. also new price index. grew by average 1.3 per cent annum between 1800 outbreak First World War. Industrial growth slightly slower than previously thought, especially two decades immediatel...

BACKGROUND Animal models have suggested that undernutrition during gestation and the early postnatal period may adversely affect kidney development and compromise renal function. As a natural experiment, famines provide an opportunity to test such potential effects in humans. We assessed whether exposure to the Chinese famine of 1959-1961 during gestation and early postnatal life was associated...

Long-term Effects of Famine on Life Expectancy: A Re-analysis of the Great Finnish Famine of 1866-1868 Famines are extreme cases of environmental stress, and have been used by a series of studies to explore the long-term consequences of the fetal or childhood environment. Results are inconsistent and do not support negative long-term effects on mortality. The authors test the hypothesis that se...