ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2019
Metabolic programming in early life in humans.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 92 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
92 citing papers in PubMed, 161 citations in OpenAlex.
- Early postnatal antibiotic-associated gut microbiota alterations might promote long-term lipid metabolism via brown adipose tissue metabolic programming.Gut microbes · 2026Article
- Article
- Heavy moms, wheezy kids: how maternal obesity harms breathing in offspring.American journal of respiratory cell and molecular biology · 2026Review
- The Potential Physiologic Mechanisms by Which Early-Life Nutrition May Influence Type 2 Diabetes Pathophysiology in Humans.Annual review of nutrition · 2026Review
- Early-life body mass index and adult fat distribution: a life-course Mendelian randomisation study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- The Motor Neuromuscular Axis: The Overlooked Element of Developmental Programming in Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Maternal Obesity and MicroRNAs in Breast Milk: Implications for Infant Developmental Programming.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2026Review
- Multimorbidity among indigenous tribal communities in Kerala, India: a cross-sectional study (2022-2024).The Lancet regional health. Southeast Asia · 2026Article
- Longitudinal Effectiveness of Repeated Lifestyle Education in Pediatric Dyslipidemia: Developmental and Environmental Modifiers in a Real-World Clinical Cohort.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Plant-derived bioactives in early-life complementary foods: a nutritional blueprint for lifelong health.Journal of advanced research · 2026Review
- Non-invasive epigenetic protein signatures associated with childhood obesity.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Article
- Resveratrol and Redox Regulation in Cardiovascular Disease Across the Life Course: Mechanistic and Translational Perspectives.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Breastfeeding in Infancy and Adult Health: A Narrative Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Early gestational weight gain and birth weight outcome: a Chinese population-based cohort.Pediatric research · 2026Article
- Global trends, projections, and inequalities in overweight and obesity among children and adolescents from 1990 to 2040: a modelling study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2026Article
- Common metabolic, environmental, and molecular mechanisms underlying neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Review
- Prenatal factors shaping adolescent cardiovascular function and cardiometabolic risk trajectories.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2026Review
- Early-Life Nutritional Determinants of Pediatric MASLD.Nutrients · 2025Review
- Phenotype of insulin-dependent diabetes in chronic undernutrition: beta cell stress and immune dysfunction-a rural sub-Saharan perspective on type 5 diabetes.Diabetologia · 2025Review
- Air Pollution Exposure and Birth Weight in the ECHO Cohort.JAMA network open · 2025Article
32 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
An association of low birth weight with an increased risk of adult cardiovascular disease and diabetes led to the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) hypothesis, which proposes that undernutrition during early development permanently 'programmes' organ structure and metabolism, leading to vulnerability to later cardio-metabolic disease. High birth weight caused by maternal gestational diabetes is also associated with later diabetes, suggesting that fetal over-nutrition also has programming effects. Post-natal factors (excess weight gain/obesity, smoking, poor diets and physical inactivity) interact with fetal exposures to increase disease risk. Animal studies have shown permanent metabolic effects in offspring after alterations to maternal or early post-natal diets but evidence in humans is largely limited to observational and quasi-experimental situations such as maternal famine exposure. Randomized trials of maternal nutritional interventions during pregnancy have so far had limited follow-up of the offspring. Moreover, interventions usually started after the first trimester and therefore missed key peri-conceptional or early pregnancy events such as epigenetic changes, placentation and fetal organogenesis. Recent and ongoing trials intervening pre-conceptionally and powered for long-term offspring follow-up will address these issues. While current preventive strategies for cardio-metabolic disease focus on high-risk individuals in mid-life, DOHaD concepts offer a 'primordial' preventive strategy to reduce disease in future generations by improving fetal and infant development. This article is part of the theme issue 'Developing differences: early-life effects and evolutionary medicine'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.