Early Life Nutrition and Lifelong Health - Derbyshire Local Medical ...

BMA Board of ScienceConclusions• Balanced nutrition during human development is of critical importance for later health andwellbeing and for reducing the risks of many chronic diseases.• Unbalanced nutrition can result from diets which have either excessive or inadequatenutrient intakes. Energy dense diets can nonetheless be poor in micronutrients.• The consequences of unbalanced nutrition at both ends of the dietary range are associatedwith increased risks of adult chronic disease.• Humans evolved to consume a diet very different from that consumed by many peopletoday. This makes our physiology potentially mismatched to our contemporary lifestyles,increasing the risks of ill-health.• During development, humans like other animals attempt to match the structure andfunctions of their organs and tissues to the world in which they expect to live. Theprediction is based on cues from the mother’s environment via the placenta and her milk.• Inaccurate predictions, for example, through socio-economic change leading to a nutritionaltransition between generations, increase mismatch and risk of disease.• In addition to maternal undernutrition, the rising incidence of maternal obesity and diabetesin pregnancy will exacerbate the epidemic of chronic disease in developed societies.• As low income countries develop, the cycle of diseases such as diabetes and obesitytriggered by nutritional mismatch may be followed by further cycles arising from relativeovernutrition during fetal and infant development.14Early life nutrition and lifelong health