ArticleBMJ open2021
Cohort profile: the Dutch famine birth cohort (DFBC)- a prospective birth cohort study in the Netherlands.
Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 55 papers, 5 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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
55 citing papers in PubMed, 5 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 92 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effects of Maternal Vitamin D Supplementation on Childhood Health.Endocrine reviews · 2026Pooled it
- Effects of Maternal Vitamin D Supplementation on Childhood Health.Endocrine reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Do prenatal factors shape the risk for dementia?: A systematic review of the epidemiological evidence for the prenatal origins of dementia.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2025Pooled it
- Exposome-Wide Association Study of Body Mass Index Using a Novel Meta-Analytical Approach for Random Forest Models.Environmental health perspectives · 2024Pooled it
- The association between prenatal famine, DNA methylation and mental disorders: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Clinical epigenetics · 2023Pooled it
- Energy constraint on human health.Trends in endocrinology and metabolism: TEM · 2026Review
- Epigenetic mechanisms of inflammatory memory in the central nervous system.Nature immunology · 2026Review
- Circadian Regulation of Glucose Metabolism: Implications for Pathogenesis and Chronotherapy of Type 2 Diabetes.Diabetology · 2026Article
- Maternal and perinatal nutritional programming of lung health and disease in childhood and early adulthood: Research gaps and opportunities-National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/National Institutes of Health Workshop Report.The Journal of allergy and clinical immunology · 2026Article
- Childhood famine exposure and the risk of gastrointestinal diseases in old individuals: a retrospective cohort analysis using the CHARLS database.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Maternal Overnutrition and Fetal Programming: Long-Term Metabolic, Cognitive, and Epigenetic Consequences.Cells · 2026Review
- Impact of prenatal environmental exposure on offspring neurodevelopment and susceptibility to neurodegenerative diseases: mechanisms and perspectives.Frontiers in public health · 2026Review
- Life course approach to health: a paradigm shift to build global health resilience for person-centred healthcare in a turbulent world?Journal of global health · 2025Article
- Editorial: Supporting families in the first 1,000 days of life - a balancing act.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Article
- Early-life nutrition supplementation and epigenetic age in middle-adulthood among Guatemalan adults.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- From Womb to Tomb: A Life-Course Perspective on the Origins of Non-communicable Diseases.Cureus · 2025Review
- In Search of Environmental Factors Associated With Global Differences in Birth Weight and BMI.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Article
- Sexual Dimorphism in Cardiometabolic Diseases: From Development to Senescence and Therapeutic Approaches.Cells · 2025Review
- A Life-Course Approach to Gestational Exposure to Famine and Risk of Mortality.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2025Article
- Women exposed to famine in early gestation have increased mortality up to age 76 years.Paediatric and perinatal epidemiology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThe Dutch famine birth cohort study was set up to investigate the effects of acute maternal undernutrition of the 1944-1945 Dutch famine during the specific stages of gestation on later health, with a particular focus on chronic cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, ageing and mental health.
participantsThe Dutch famine birth cohort consists of 2414 singletons born alive and at term in the Wilhelmina Gasthuis in Amsterdam around the time of the Dutch famine (1943-1947) whose birth records have been kept. The cohort has been traced and studied since 1994, when the first data collection started. The cohort has been interviewed and physically examined in several waves of data collection since that time, allowing repeated measures of a wide range of phenotypic information as well as the collection of biological samples (blood, urine, buccal swabs), functional testing (of heart, lungs, kidney, HPA axis) and imaging of the brain (MRI) and vasculature (ultrasound). Additionally, genetic and epigenetic information was collected. Through linkage with registries, mortality and morbidity information of the entire cohort has been obtained. FINDINGS TO DATE: Prenatal famine exposure had lasting consequences for health in later life. The effects of famine depended on its timing during the gestation and the organs and tissues developing at that time, with most effects after exposure to famine in early gestation. The effects of famine were widespread and affected the structure and function of many organs and tissues, resulted in altered behaviour and increased risks of chronic degenerative diseases and increased mortality. The effects of famine were independent of size at birth, which suggests that programming may occur without altering size at birth. FUTURE PLANS: As the cohort ages, we will be assessing the effects of prenatal undernutrition on (brain) ageing, cognitive decline and dementia, as well as overall morbidity and mortality. REGISTRATION: The Dutch famine birth cohort is not linked to a clinical trial.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.