The Barker hypothesis of “fetal origins
What is the Barker hypothesis of the developmental origins of health and disease?
Based on these observations, Barker formulated the hypothesis of the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), which
proposes that exposure to environmental factors during specific sensitive periods of development might predispose an organism to diseases in adult life
.
What is Baker hypothesis?
A hypothesis proposed in 1990 by the British epidemiologist David Barker (b. 1939) that
intrauterine growth retardation, low birth weight, and premature birth have a causal relationship to the origins of hypertension, coronary heart disease, and non-insulin-dependent diabetes
, in middle age.
What is the fetal origin theory?
In 1995 David Barker wrote: “The fetal origins hypothesis states
that fetal undernutrition in middle to late gestation, which leads to disproportionate fetal growth, programmes later coronary heart disease
.”
1
Now, 10 years later, the importance of events before birth for lifetime health has been confirmed in many …
What is fetal programming hypothesis?
The fetal programming hypothesis
proposes that these diseases originate through adaptation which the fetus makes when it is undernourished
. These adaptations may be vascular, metabolic or endocrine. They permanently change the function and the structure of the body in adult life [1, 2].
What is the thrifty gene hypothesis?
The thrifty gene hypothesis suggests that
the carriers of the ‘thrifty genes’ survive because they deposit fat between famines
. The implication of this is that the primary factor causing famine mortality is running out of energy reserves—that is, starvation, and that fatter people run out of reserves more slowly.
What is thrifty phenotype hypothesis?
The thrifty phenotype hypothesis proposes that
the epidemiological associations between poor fetal and infant growth and the subsequent development of type 2 diabetes and the metabolic syndrome result from the effects of poor nutrition in early life
, which produces permanent changes in glucose-insulin metabolism.
What does the Barker hypothesis tell us about the relationship between birthweight and future Health?
The Barker hypothesis proposed that
adverse nutrition in early life, including prenatally as measured by birth weight
, increased susceptibility to the metabolic syndrome which includes obesity, diabetes, insulin insensitivity, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia and complications that include coronary heart disease and …
What is the Barker hypothesis fetal origins hypothesis )?
The Barker hypothesis of “fetal origins” or “fetal programming”
advocates that the origins of chronic diseases of adult life lie in fetal responses to the intrauterine environment
. Specifically, it suggests that the genesis of adult-onset chronic diseases originates through fetal adaptations to undernourishment.
What does DOHaD mean?
The
Developmental Origins of Health and Disease
(DOHaD) concept describes how maternal and environmental factors during a child’s life, right from conception, can affect that child’s growth and development.
When do fetuses begin to hear?
Week 18: Baby begins to hear
Eighteen weeks into your pregnancy
, or 16 weeks after conception, your baby’s ears begin to stand out on the sides of his or her head. Your baby might begin to hear sounds.
Which disorder is commonly associated with very low birth weight babies?
This is called
intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR)
. It may happen because of problems with the placenta, the mother’s health, or birth defects. Most very low birth weight babies who have IUGR are also born early. They are usually very small and physically immature.
How do the fetal origins of disease relate to undernutrition?
FETAL ORIGINS OF DISEASE
This led to the “Thrifty Phenotype” hypothesis, where poor nutrition in utero led to
fetal adaptations that produced permanent changes in insulin and glucose metabolism
, increasing the risk of developing the metabolic syndrome in adulthood[8].
What is an example of fetal programming?
Another example of fetal programming processes independent of poor nutrition is
programming of a fetal phenotype induced by maternal genes independent of fetal genes
.
Who proposed the thrifty hypothesis of fetal programming?
Hales and Barker (1)
caused a paradigm shift in our thinking about diabetes prevention when they demonstrated that low birth weight (due to growth retardation) predicted type 2 diabetes (the “thrifty phenotype” or “fetal origins” hypothesis).
What is perinatal programming?
Perinatal programming,
a dominant theory for the origins of cardiovascular disease
, proposes that environmental stimuli influence developmental pathways during critical periods of prenatal and postnatal development, inducing permanent changes in metabolism.
