3 - Developmental Origin of Disease

Question 1

Past assumptions about nutrition and embryonic and fetal growth and development

Answer 1

1. The fetus would take whatever nutrients or other substances for normal growth from the mother
2. Only extremely poor diets were hazardous to the fetus
3. The mother’s health would be compromised by poor diets rather than fetal health

Question 2

The Barker Hypothesis

Answer 2

Adverse environmental influences, such as
undernutrition, in utero and during infancy
permanently changes the body’s structure,
physiology and metabolism and leads to coronary
heart disease and stroke in adult life.

Question 3

Small size at birth or in infancy is associated with an increased propensity to adverse health in adulthood such as

Answer 3

abnormal blood lipid values, diabetes, hypertension, death from ischemic heart disease

Question 4

The parameters assessed to observe the famine and pregnancy outcomes

Answer 4

birth weight, placental weight, infant length at birth, head size at birth, duration of gestation, maternal weight

Question 5

The summary of findings of Fetal Origin Hypothesis

Answer 5

Exposure to severe
malnutrition in early
pregnancy:
• Increased stillbirths
• Increased death during
first week of life
• Increased central
nervous system defects,
such as neural tube
defects (NTDs)

Exposure to severe malnutrition
in late pregnancy:
• Decreased maternal weight
gain
• Decreased infant birth
weight
• Decreased infant and
length & head
circumference
• Decreased placental weight

Question 6

Growth and development in utero and during the first year of life is determined by

Answer 6

Genes, environmental exposures

Question 7

Developmental plasticity

Answer 7

The ability of the fetus to modify gene functions when
exposed to adverse conditions that threaten its immediate
chances of survival

Question 8

Mechanism underlying developmental programming

Answer 8

Epigenetic mechanisms: silencing certain genes, activating other genes

Question 9

Examples of developmental programming effects

Answer 9

1. Inadequate glucose availability
2. Central nervous system development disruption
3. Suppression on the expression of genes that produce insulin receptors
4. Effects in later life
5. Cholesterol metabolism
6. Blood pressure
7. Heart disease
8. Infection
9. Increase risk of obesity, hypertension, and diabetes

Question 10

Developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) is..

Answer 10

the term used to describe the relationships
between maternal and fetal exposures during pregnancy and
later disease risk in offspring

Question 11

Some of the examples of NCDs related to smallness or thinness at birth

Answer 11

1. Allergies
2. Obesity
3. Type 2 Diabetes
4. Hypertension
5. Kidney disease