Epidemiological studies linking low birth weight and subsequent cardiometabolic disease have given rise to the hypothesis that events in fetal life permanently program subsequent cardiovascular risk. The effects of fetal programming may not be limited to the first-generation offspring. We have explored intergenerational effects in the dexamethasone-programmed rat, a model in which fetal exposur...

People who develop coronary heart disease grow differently from other people both in utero and during childhood. Slow growth during fetal life and infancy is followed by accelerated weight gain in childhood. Two disorders that predispose to coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes and hypertension, are preceded by similar paths of growth. Mechanisms underlying this are thought to include the dev...

OBJECTIVE Childhood obesity affects nearly 17% of children and adolescents in the United States. Increasing evidence indicates that prenatal maternal stress signals influence fetal growth, child obesity, and metabolic risk. Children exhibiting catch-up growth, a rapid and dramatic increase in body size, within the first two years of life are also at an increased risk for developing metabolic di...

This paper reviews the recent literature on candidate genes, anthropometric and environmental factors, and the evolving area of intrauterine fetal programming with regard to the development of osteoporosis.

Background Perinatal programming is an emerging theory for the fetal origins of chronic disease. Maternal asthma and environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) are two of the bestknown triggers for the perinatal programming of asthma, while the potential role of maternal diabetes has not been widely studied. The goal of this study was to determine if maternal diabetes contributes to the perinatal progra...