Early Life Nutrition and Future Health

• Main Author: Connor, Kristin (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI - Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 2020
• Subjects: Biology, life sciences; gut-brain; life-course epidemiology; milk composition; postnatal calcium homeostasis; fruit juices; phospholipids; infant; abdominal obesity; postpartum; L-cell; programming; gut health; development; sugars; pregnancy; gangliosides; non-communicable disease; prebiotic; dietary reference intakes (DRIs); adulthood; adult bone health; malnutrition; supplements; nutrition; dietary fibre; gut barrier; child; microbiota; folic acid supplementation; Healthy Eating Index; human milk; nutrient-sensing signal; fetal; epidemiology; developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD); dietary intake; pH; energy intake; human milk oligosaccharides; undernutrition; short-chain fatty acid (SCFA); LC-MS; eating behavior; gut microbiota; reprogramming; social inequalities; diet quality; reduced litter size; sphingomyelin; oxidative stress
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

Inequity starts before birth and is programmed in part by nutritional exposures. If these exposures occur around the time of conception, during pregnancy, and/or in infancy or childhood (all critical periods of development) they may alter a child's health trajectory and impact risk for impaired cognition and learning, and cardiometabolic, immune, and neuropsychiatric diseases and disorders. This Special Issue on "Early Life Nutrition and Future Health" has the following aims: 1) understand the origins of offspring health inequities from an early nutritional perspective; 2) uncover new insights into the environmental, biological, and social mechanisms that underpin these health outcomes in offspring; and 3) present novel targets and approaches to optimise health trajectories and prevent chronic diseases and disorders in later life and across generations. The research projects included herein highlight novel mechanistic, epidemiologic, and intervention studies that target key windows where nutrition has the greatest influence on future health (preconception, prenatal, and postnatal periods) and that explore vulnerable populations and animal models of early life nutritional programming.