Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: Exposures, Outcome, Mechanisms and Interventions

Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: Exposures, Outcome,  Mechanisms and Interventions

Edited by M. Zygmunt, H.G. Bender and W. Kunzel

Nova Acta Leopoldina. Neue Folge, Band 112, Nummer 382, RRP $26.99, pp119, ISBN 978-3-8047-2887-5

Reviewed by Jennifer Wang*

The Deutsche Akademie der NaturforscherLeopoldina addresses key social issues from a scientific perspective, raising public awareness and promoting further discussion on a national and international level.

One of the major concerns for Western society is the increasing prevalence of metabolic diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

The 2009 Leopoldina-Symposium in Greifswald, Germany, focused on intrauterine and early life influences in the development of metabolic disease.

Research presented at this meeting was published in this issue of the Nova ActaLeopoldina, one of the Academy's major journals.

This collection demonstrates how far research into the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) has progressed since it was pioneered by David Barker in the 1980s.

It begins with an article by Hoffmann and Thyrian (Greifswald) introducing Barker's hypothesis that metabolic diseases originate through developmental plasticity, “in response to under-nutrition during foetal life and infancy”.

Hoffmann and Thyrian assert that population-based studies are necessary to further identify risk or protective factors, and to allow the development of preventative interventions.

The rest of the collection is structured into sections detailing intrauterine exposures, mechanisms, outcome and interventions.

Common themes include foetal programming, the effects of maternal nutrition and diabetes on foetal development, and the long-term consequences of prematurity and low birth weight.

A diverse range of studies is published from centres around the world, including review articles, animal studies and cohort studies of pre-term and low birth weight infants.

The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease provides compelling evidence that, to a certain extent, life trajectories are determined from even before birth.

Yet is raises hope that, through further understanding of foetal plasticity and “critical windows” of intervention, population-based interventions may finally bring metabolic disease under control.

In view of this scope, this volume would be valuable for aspiring epidemiologists, as well as any health practitioner with an interest in novel methods of disease management on a population basis.

*Jennifer Wang is a resident medical officer at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead