Parental nutrition and developmental origins of health and disease

Human studies and animal experiments have shown that overnutrition and undernutrition during the prenatal period can induce the development of noncommunicable diseases during postnatal life. This unfavorable programming is the basis for the “developmental origins of health and disease” (DOHaD) hypothesis. This adverse developmental programming can affect offspring beyond the F1 generation and can be induced by paternal and maternal lineages. Several studies have demonstrated that altered phenotypes induced by prenatal nutrition are associated with epigenetic modifications. Nevertheless, clear cause–effect relationships between disease occurrence and epigenetic changes are not available. Research is needed to identify epigenetic marks that will assist in the development of preventive and interventional strategies against adverse developmental programming induced by nutrition during the prenatal period