Research

Hormonal

Adverse environmental conditions during early somatic development (fetal/infancy) increase the lifelong risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease through persistent metabolic and physiological programming.

Your health trajectory is influenced by your early environment, not just your current habits. While you cannot change your birth weight or early nutrition, understanding this link helps explain why certain metabolic risks exist and underscores the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle to counteract early programming.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Recent studies demonstrate associations between aggressions suffered during the initial phases of somatic development and amplified risk of chronic diseases throughout life, such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
Patr&iacute et al. · Jornal de Pediatria · 2007

Why this rating

The paper is a non-systematic review citing observational epidemiological studies and animal models; it does not present new primary clinical trial data.

Source

Developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD)

Patr&iacute et al. · Jornal de Pediatria · 2007

DOI 10.2223/jped.1728

narrative_reviewCited 242×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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