Early life influences and type-2 diabetes – a review

Early life factors encompassing parental, foetal and postnatal characteristics, have an important influence on individual disease risk. Of particular importance is the role of maternal lifetime nutrition and metabolic reserves, and the impact on offspring birth outcomes. Birth weight, in turn, affects disease risk in later life. Being born small and showing rapid weight gain during childhood are especially important risk determinants for impaired glucose tolerance, higher blood pressure, dyslipidaemia, overweight and obesity in later life. Postnatal growth patterns, socio-environmental factors and genetic influences thus act in concert to increase the predilection for chronic diseases, including type-2 diabetes.