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

BMA Board of ScienceFigure 4: Patterns of infant and childhood growth associated with later heart diseaseBody mass indexWeightHeight0.050COHORTStandard deviation (z score)-0.05-0.1-0.15-0.2-0.250 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12Age (years)Growth (shown as Z score, ie shift in standard deviation from the group mean shown as 0) in 357 boys whodeveloped CHD from a cohort of 4,630 born in Helsinki between 1934 and 1944. Their childhood growthpattern is characterised by small size at birth, slow growth in years 0-2, then relatively greater increase inweight and BMI.Source: Eriksson JG, Forsén T, Tuomilehto J et al (2001) Early growth and coronary heart disease in later life:longitudinal study. British Medical Journal 322: 949-53There is also clear evidence of adverse effects of excessive weight gain in childhood on adult diseaserisk (see Figure 5) but controversy about the effect of weight gain during infancy (see Chapter 3).Given the similarities in responses between humans and other animals in terms of adaptiveresponses to environmental challenges during development, it may be helpful to consider them interms of the spectrum of effects which might be produced on theoretical grounds (see Figure 5).This is important because it shows how even a modest nutritional challenge during developmentmight be expected to have long-term consequences, even without an effect on birth weight.Early life nutrition and lifelong health 17