Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Mar 1;10(2):66-70.
doi: 10.1093/inthealth/ihy006.

Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: the relevance to developing nations

Mirembe Mandy  1 , Moffat Nyirenda  1   2
Affiliations

Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: the relevance to developing nations

Mirembe Mandy et al. Int Health. .

Abstract

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, are experiencing rapid increases in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which may not be fully explained by urbanization and associated traditional risk factors such as tobacco smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, poor diet or physical inactivity. In this commentary, we draw attention to the concept of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD), where environmental insults in early life can contribute to long-term risk of NCDs, the impact of which would be particularly important in LMICs where poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation and infections are still prevalent.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
A theory of glucocorticoids as a potential common mechanism through which various environmental factors exert their programming effects.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Hales CN, Barker DJ, Clark PM et al. . Fetal and infant growth and impaired glucose tolerance at age 64. Br Med J 1991;303(6809):1019–22. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Barker DJ. The origins of the developmental origins theory. J Intern Med 2007;261(5):412–17. - PubMed
    1. Gluckman PD, Hanson MA, Cooper C et al. . Effect of in utero and early-life conditions on adult health and disease. N Engl J Med 2008;359(1):61–73. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Gluckman PD, Hanson MA, Spencer HG. Predictive adaptive responses and human evolution. Trends Ecol Evol 2005;20(10):527–33. - PubMed
    1. Hales CN, Barker DJ. The thrifty phenotype hypothesis. Br Med Bull 2001;60(1):5–20. - PubMed