Impact on enviroment Flashcards
- What challenges could foetus face in term that could have a lasting impact on its health? (6)
- Foetal infection in utero
- Maternal illness
- Maternal stress
- Maternal nutrition
- Maternal medictaion
- Environment
Maternal nutrition- such as?
High fat or low protein diets taken in by mother during pregnancy can impact foetal health and development e.g. protein affects number of neurones forming at time of conception
Maternal medication- how?
Could cross placenta and be modified to affect child - eg lamotrigene
What 2 types of influences on long term health of the foetus are there? + examples (2,5)
- Biological -> genetics and epigenetics
- Enviornmental -> enviornment, social status, family, nutrition, healthcare
What is epigenetics?
Heritable changes in marks on the DNA that don’t change the nucleotide sequence but influence how genes are expressed (where, when and how much of a gene is switched on or off)
What is the barker Hypothesis/ DOHaD?
Early life influences can be predictors of health status in adulthood
How did the Barker study show this? Weight study and CVD
- On average, adults who had a coronary event had been small at birth and thin at 2 years of age
- But after that they put on weight after rapidly compared to their peers
- The risk of coronary events was more strongly related to the rate of change of childhood BMI, rather than to the BMI attained at any particular age of childhood
- How can the Barker hypothesis be specifically applied to child health?Under nutrition in utero and over nutrition as a child → increased risk of metabolic syndrome → leads to increased risk of cardiovascular events later in life
- **The idea of **programming in utero** - Leads to epigenetic changes which influence development and physiology - If mother has malnutrition, then when foetus is born it has a high energy intake to catch up on nutrition missed during foetal development which leads to **overshoot in nutrition** which leads to cardiovascular problems as an adult**
explain the programming in uteuro using PARs
- predictive adaptive responses (PARs): PARs are proposed to be developmental adaptations taken to prepare the fetus for its future environment eg little food in fetus → high energy intake
- So if theres a different environment outside the womb it doesn’t prepare it for that
what diseaes can we associate with this incorrect exposure in fetus (6)
- Cardiovascular disease
- T2DM
- Lung disease
- Cancer risk
- Neurological, special sense and intellectual development
- Allergic and autoimmune diseases
3 challenges the fetus can face regarding its health
- Hormonal
- Epigenetic
- Irreversible developments
What hormonal effects could the fetus face?
- Fetal glucocorticoid exposure is usually regulated by placental 11BHSD2 enzyme
- Reduction in 11BHSD2 expression or increased maternal GCs (STRESS) may lead to greater fetal GC exposure.
What are some irreversible developments?
- Fetal hypoxia -> reduced nephron numbers -> increased risk of hypertension/renal disease in adulthood
- Fetal undernutrition -> reduced beta cell mass/altered muscle insulin sensitivity -> impaired glucose control in adulthood
when can epigenetic reprogramming take place?
- Gametogenesis
- early dev
- organogenesis
- post natal period
how can this impact future generations? (think PGCS)
Premordial Gamete Cells are embryonic precursors that undergo epigenetic reprogramming. eg diet of mother can affect embryogenesis in female fetus. -> GRANDCHILDREN
