2011 Role of Maternal Micronutrients

Two thirds of all deaths in the world are due to non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and 80% of NCD deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. Cardiovascular diseases, obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D) are the major contributors to the global burden of NCDs. Studies in the life course evolution of these chronic diseases have highlighted an etiological role for factors which govern intrauterine and post-natal growth. Research in this field could off er a novel solution to the “primordial” prevention of conditions which are the most prominent killers in today’s world. These novel ideas arose from a series of studies by David Barker and his colleagues in the UK. They proposed that intrauterine undernutrition initiated a number of adaptations in the fetus which increased disease susceptibility in later life, especially when post-natal nutrition tended to be “excessive”. A developing fetus has the ability to grow in different ways depending on the surrounding (intrauterine) environment; this ability is called the “plasticity”. An unfavorable environment restricts the ability of the fetus to grow “wildly” and causes a permanent structural or functional change, known as “programming”. India is the world’s capital of low birth weight (lBW) babies, while at the same time it is evolving into one of the economic powers of the world. It was clear that research in India would shed important light on these new and exciting ideas.