‘Fetal programming’ and ‘functional teratogenesis’: on epigenetic mechanisms and prevention of perinatally acquired lasting health risks
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A. Plagemann
Abstract
Alterations of the intrauterine and early postnatal nutritional, metabolic, and hormonal environment may cause predispositions to the development of disorders and diseases in later life. Mechanisms responsible for this perinatally acquired ‘malprogramming’ still remain unclear. It has long been known, however, that hormones are environment-dependent organizers of the developing ‘neuroendocrine-immune network’, which regulates all fundamental processes of life. When present in nonphysiological concentrations during critical ontogenetic periods, hormones can therefore also act as ‘endogenous functional teratogens’.
Fetal and neonatal hyperinsulinism is a pathognomic feature in the offspring of diabetic mothers. Perinatal hyperinsulinism also occurs due to early postnatal overfeeding. Data obtained by our group indicate that elevated insulin concentrations during critical periods of perinatal life may induce a lasting ‘malprogramming’ of neuroendocrine systems regulating body weight, food intake, and metabolism. Similar characteristics may occur due to perinatal hyperleptinism, hypercortisolism etc. Since mechanisms of early ‘programming’ of obesity, diabetes, and the metabolic syndrome X are unclear, a complex ‘neuroendocrine malprogramming’ of the regulation of body weight and metabolism may provide a general etiopathogenetic concept in this context, exemplarily revealing critical new implications for chances and challenges of perinatal preventive medicine in the future.
Copyright © 2004 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG
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Articles in the same Issue
- Publishers' note
- ‘Fetal programming’ and ‘functional teratogenesis’: on epigenetic mechanisms and prevention of perinatally acquired lasting health risks
- The baby or the bathwater: which one should be discarded?
- Waterbirths compared with landbirths: an observational study of nine years
- Anti-hypertensive therapy and the feto-placental circulation: effects on umbilical artery resistance
- A 2 hour versus the 3 hour 100 g glucose tolerance test for diagnosing gestational diabetes mellitus
- Mycoplasma hominis in mid-trimester amniotic fluid: relation to pregnancy outcome
- Changes in the size of maternal inferior vena cava during pregnancy
- Maternal plasma procalcitonin concentrations in patients with preterm labor and intact membranes - prediction of preterm delivery and admission-to-delivery interval
- Determinant factors in Ecuador related to pregnancy among adolescents aged 15 or less
- Different maternal serum hCG levels in pregnant women with female and male fetuses: does fetal hypophyseal – adrenal – gonadal axis play a role?
- Behavioral pattern continuity from prenatal to postnatal life a study by four-dimensional (4D) ultrasonography
- Evidence of fetal pulmonary aspiration of intra-amniotic administered surfactant in animal experiment
- Impact of phototherapy on vasoactive mediators: NO and VEGF in the newborn
- Reexpansion pulmonary edema following patent ductus arteriosus ligation in a preterm infant
- Prostaglandin E[1] treatment in patent ductus arteriosus dependent congenital heart defects
- Maternal anaphylaxis and fetal brain damage after intrapartum chemoprophylaxis
- Atypical sonographic presentation of fetal unilateral inguinoscrotal hernia in a multiple gestation
- A case report of polysplenia syndrome associated with genital tract duplication anomaly
- Hyperphenylalaninemia in a premature infant with heterozygosity for phenylketonuria
