In this issue, Keinan-Boker summarises the main studies that have followed up offspring of women exposed to famine during pregnancy and calls for the establishment of a national cohort of Holocaust survivors and their offspring to study inter-generational effects. She suggests that the study would consolidate the fetal origins theory and lead to translational applications to deal with the inter...

Nowadays, the world hop industry is faced with one of the biggest crisis in the history. Permanent decrease of hopping rates in the world beer industry during last 20 years caused many problems to hop producers all around the world. It resulted in the huge surpluses of hop stocks between years 2008 and 2010, the ages known as “years of famine” for hop farmers. Th e hop contains some compounds h...

BACKGROUND To explore the associations between the Chinese famine exposure in early life and the dyslipidemia in adulthood. METHODS We selected 2752 participants from the baseline survey of China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS) 2011-2012 to evaluate the associations of early life the Chinese famine exposure with risk of dyslipidemia in adulthood. Dyslipidemia was defined as ...

Although it is assumed that epigenetic mechanisms, such as changes in DNA methylation (DNAm), underlie the relationship between adverse intrauterine conditions and adult metabolic health, evidence from human studies remains scarce. Therefore, we evaluated whether DNAm in whole blood mediated the association between prenatal famine exposure and metabolic health in 422 individuals exposed to fami...

The Dutch Hunger Winter (1944/45) is the most-studied famine in the literature on long-run effects of malnutrition in utero. Its temporal and spatial demarcations are clear, it was severe, it was not anticipated, and nutritional conditions in society were favorable and stable before and after the famine. This is the first study to analyze effects of in utero exposure on labor market outcomes an...

An estimated 8·8 million people in east Africa are going hungry, and a sluggish international response is failing to address the growing crisis, which is approaching famine conditions in some areas. The USA, Europe, and other wealthy donors, despite warnings forecasting the crisis since late last year, have responded too little and too late, forcing international aid agencies to reduce emergenc...

OBJECTIVE To investigate whether SIRT1, a nutrient-sensing histone deacetylase, influences fetal programming during malnutrition. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In 793 individuals of the Dutch Famine Birth Cohort, we analyzed the interaction between three SIRT1 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and prenatal exposure to famine on type 2 diabetes risk. RESULTS In the total population (expos...

The causal pathway linking prenatal and early childhood environments with health and economic outcomes in adulthood has been a question that has intrigued doctors, economists, and policymakers alike. In drawing upon the regional and temporal variation in the intensity of the Great Chinese Famine in 1959-1961—the largest famine known to-date, I find that prenatal exposure to the famine results i...

Objective. To examine the association between undernutrition during postnatal periods of development and the risk of overweight in adulthood. Methods. We studied 8,091 women from Prospect-EPIC, exposed to the Dutch famine at ages between 0 and 21 years, recruited at ages between 49 and 70 years. We used linear and logistic regression models to explore the effect of famine on BMI, waist circumfe...