Prenatal exposure to famine during gestation shown to be not significantly associated with metabolic syndrome
Document Actions
In order to investigate whether exposure to prenatal famine was associated with an increased risk of metabolic syndrome, the prevalence of metabolic syndrome was assessed in 783 members of the Dutch Famine Birth Cohort, born as term singletons around the time of the 1944-1945 Dutch famine, during which official daily food rations for the adult population (a surrogate of nutritional intake for the population as a whole) were severely curtailed. Neither exposure to famine during gestation nor birth weight were significantly associated with metabolic syndrome. However, exposure to famine during gestation was associated with significantly higher triacylglycerol concentrations in later life. Furthermore, men exposed to famine during gestation had significantly lower HDL-cholesterol levels than did unexposed men. Based on these findings, the authors conclude that, although discrete elements of metabolic syndrome may be programmed by fetal undernutrition, the origin of the syndrome as a whole was not found in poor nutrition during gestation, as embodied by prenatal famine.
Abstract
