Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, 89154-5003.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2013 Dec;152 Suppl 57:79-93. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22393. Epub 2013 Oct 23.
Popular media reports concerning the causes of the current global obesity pandemic and its related sequelae-the cardiometabolic syndrome-are often couched in terms of dramatic changes in diet and lifestyle around the world; namely, drastically increasing dietary intakes of high energy foods and plummeting levels of daily physical activity-the hallmarks of the so called "nutrition transition." Far less attention is generally drawn to the important role phenotypic plasticity during early life (i.e., "developmental programming") plays in the cardiometabolic health crisis. Recently, however, researchers working within the field of the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD) and epigenetics have extended our understanding of the role played by these developmental processes and capacities in health and disease even further by investigating the transmissible nature of developmentally programmed cardiometabolic traits to subsequent generations. In this review, after briefly revisiting the fundamental discoveries of first-generation DOHaD research, I consider how recent discoveries regarding the transmissibility of developmentally acquired traits are providing new insights into the current global cardiometabolic pandemic, and how a better understanding of developmental programming-including transmissibility-are essential for the conceptualization and implementation of public health initiatives aimed at stemming this global health crisis.
大众媒体对当前全球肥胖流行及其相关后果——心血管代谢综合征的病因的报道，往往是基于世界各地饮食和生活方式的急剧变化；即，饮食中高能量食物的摄入量急剧增加，日常体力活动水平骤降——这是所谓的“营养转型”的标志。然而，人们通常较少关注生命早期表型可塑性（即“发育编程”）在心血管代谢健康危机中的重要作用。然而，最近在健康与疾病的发育起源（DOHaD）和表观遗传学领域工作的研究人员通过研究发育编程的心血管代谢特征向后代的可传递性，进一步扩展了我们对这些发育过程和能力在健康和疾病中所起作用的理解。在这篇综述中，在简要回顾第一代 DOHaD 研究的基本发现之后，我考虑了最近关于可传递性的发现如何为当前的全球心血管代谢流行提供新的见解，以及对发育编程的更好理解——包括可传递性——对于旨在遏制这一全球健康危机的公共卫生举措的概念化和实施至关重要。
