Abstract:
This chapter explores how the field of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) has advanced our understanding of human disease. It reviews the evidence linking risk of cardiometabolic diseases and obesity to epigenomic changes induced by early-life cues, and discusses the clinical and public health significance of these new insights. DNA methylation is the best characterized of the epigenetic mechanisms, particularly with respect to DOHaD studies. The chapter also reviews the evidence that early-life cues can operate as effectors of metabolic programming via the induction of epigenetic alterations that are stable over the long term, and possibly maintained through the life course. Multiple studies using rodents, sheep, and primates have provided a wealth of information on the molecular basis of how early nutritional conditions may induce metabolic programming with later-life effects, and the chapter describes a few of the well-established approaches.