Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 The developmental origins of health and disease: an overview
- 2 The ‘developmental origins’ hypothesis: epidemiology
- 3 The conceptual basis for the developmental origins of health and disease
- 4 The periconceptional and embryonic period
- 5 Epigenetic mechanisms
- 6 A mitochondrial component of developmental programming
- 7 Role of exposure to environmental chemicals in developmental origins of health and disease
- 8 Maternal nutrition and fetal growth and development
- 9 Placental mechanisms and developmental origins of health and disease
- 10 Control of fetal metabolism: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 11 Lipid metabolism: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 12 Prenatal hypoxia: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 13 The fetal hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 14 Perinatal influences on the endocrine and metabolic axes during childhood
- 15 Patterns of growth: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 16 The developmental environment and the endocrine pancreas
- 17 The developmental environment and insulin resistance
- 18 The developmental environment and the development of obesity
- 19 The developmental environment and its role in the metabolic syndrome
- 20 Programming the cardiovascular system
- 21 The role of vascular dysfunction in developmental origins of health and disease: evidence from human and animal studies
- 22 The developmental environment and atherogenesis
- 23 The developmental environment, renal function and disease
- 24 The developmental environment: effect on fluid and electrolyte homeostasis
- 25 The developmental environment: effects on lung structure and function
- 26 Developmental origins of asthma and related allergic disorders
- 27 The developmental environment: influences on subsequent cognitive function and behaviour
- 28 The developmental environment and the origins of neurological disorders
- 29 The developmental environment: clinical perspectives on effects on the musculoskeletal system
- 30 The developmental environment: experimental perspectives on skeletal development
- 31 The developmental environment and the early origins of cancer
- 32 The developmental environment: implications for ageing and life span
- 33 Developmental origins of health and disease: implications for primary intervention for cardiovascular and metabolic disease
- 34 Developmental origins of health and disease: public-health perspectives
- 35 Developmental origins of health and disease: implications for developing countries
- 36 Developmental origins of health and disease: ethical and social considerations
- 37 Past obstacles and future promise
- Index
- References
32 - The developmental environment: implications for ageing and life span
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Preface
- 1 The developmental origins of health and disease: an overview
- 2 The ‘developmental origins’ hypothesis: epidemiology
- 3 The conceptual basis for the developmental origins of health and disease
- 4 The periconceptional and embryonic period
- 5 Epigenetic mechanisms
- 6 A mitochondrial component of developmental programming
- 7 Role of exposure to environmental chemicals in developmental origins of health and disease
- 8 Maternal nutrition and fetal growth and development
- 9 Placental mechanisms and developmental origins of health and disease
- 10 Control of fetal metabolism: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 11 Lipid metabolism: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 12 Prenatal hypoxia: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 13 The fetal hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 14 Perinatal influences on the endocrine and metabolic axes during childhood
- 15 Patterns of growth: relevance to developmental origins of health and disease
- 16 The developmental environment and the endocrine pancreas
- 17 The developmental environment and insulin resistance
- 18 The developmental environment and the development of obesity
- 19 The developmental environment and its role in the metabolic syndrome
- 20 Programming the cardiovascular system
- 21 The role of vascular dysfunction in developmental origins of health and disease: evidence from human and animal studies
- 22 The developmental environment and atherogenesis
- 23 The developmental environment, renal function and disease
- 24 The developmental environment: effect on fluid and electrolyte homeostasis
- 25 The developmental environment: effects on lung structure and function
- 26 Developmental origins of asthma and related allergic disorders
- 27 The developmental environment: influences on subsequent cognitive function and behaviour
- 28 The developmental environment and the origins of neurological disorders
- 29 The developmental environment: clinical perspectives on effects on the musculoskeletal system
- 30 The developmental environment: experimental perspectives on skeletal development
- 31 The developmental environment and the early origins of cancer
- 32 The developmental environment: implications for ageing and life span
- 33 Developmental origins of health and disease: implications for primary intervention for cardiovascular and metabolic disease
- 34 Developmental origins of health and disease: public-health perspectives
- 35 Developmental origins of health and disease: implications for developing countries
- 36 Developmental origins of health and disease: ethical and social considerations
- 37 Past obstacles and future promise
- Index
- References
Summary
Introduction
The ageing process is generally taken to refer to the final stages of an organism's life cycle, ‘ageing’ often being defined as a progressive, generalised impairment of function resulting in an increasing risk of frailty, disability, disease, and eventually death. Although ageing is thus distanced from the developmental processes of early life, a continuum of cellular and molecular processes connects the beginning and end of life, and recent advances in research on ageing have highlighted the life-course nature of the factors that influence ageing and longevity. In particular, it is now widely accepted that events occurring early in life can have important impacts on the outcomes of the ageing process, influencing both health in old age and the length of life itself.
Three principal kinds of mechanism can be distinguished that connect development with ageing. First, the ageing process is driven by the lifelong accumulation of cellular and molecular damage, arising from processes such as oxidative damage and errors in macromolecule synthesis and processing. These errors begin to accumulate from a very early stage of development, so stresses in early life that increase rates of damage, even transiently, can have long-term consequences. Second, as we shall see below, the cellular maintenance and repair processes that influence damage accumulation appear to be influenced in some circumstances by environmental factors, such as nutrition. Therefore, variations in the developmental environment can affect the efficiency of repair, which in turn can affect ageing and life span.
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- Information
- Developmental Origins of Health and Disease , pp. 426 - 435Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006