Link between food in early life and famine survival in adulthood

Study makes link between poor access to nutrition in infancy and increased risk of mortality in later life Conversely, being born with a silver spoon in your mouth may give life-long advantages - Scientists at the University of Sheffield have found a link between poor nutrition during early life and reduced resilience to later-life famine. People who experienced poor harvests around the time they were born were less likely to survive a subsequent famine than those that were born in years when food was abundant. The Sheffield scientists analysed year-to-year crop harvest variation together with church records detailing birth, death, childbirth, and socioeconomic status for more than 3,000 individuals living in southwest Finland. They looked at the factors that influenced their fates during the catastrophic famine that struck in 1866-1868, during which the country lost around one in 10 of its population. The collaborative study, between the Universities of Sheffield and Durham, was jointly led by Dr Adam Hayward and Dr Ian Rickard and was designed as a test of alternative hypotheses on the effects of the early-life environment on survival. Some have argued that when we experience poor nutrition at the time of our birth, our bodies can adapt metabolically so that we can better cope with poor nutrition in later life. This study supports an alternative hypothesis that the harmful effects of a poor start in life also apply during the very worst conditions.