Late effects of malnutrition

Those who are starving in their childhood are more susceptible to illness for life

08/06/2013

Malnutrition in childhood weakens the body for a lifetime. The documented researchers on the basis of Finnish church registry data. Therefore, the assumption that the body is strengthened by a poor diet in childhood for hardship, is simply wrong. Rather, adults who were starving in their childhood are more susceptible to cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorders such as diabetes mellitus in later life under conditions of abundance.

Child malnutrition can cause illness later in life
There was a long-held belief that malnutrition in childhood strengthens the body in times of need later in life. However, as researchers around Adam Hayward of the University of Sheffield found out, this assumption is wrong. An analysis of data from church registers of Finnish municipalities, which suffered from extreme famine in 1867 and 1868, showed a contrary effect. At that time, eight percent of the Finnish population died.

„Data from specific fifty-year-olds were tracked from birth to famine, where we analyzed their survival and reproductive success in terms of crop yields around their birth. We were also able to examine whether the long-term effects of early childhood nutrition varied among individuals with different socio-economic status“, the researchers report in the journal „Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America“ (PNSA). According to the report, women and men who had produced abundant harvests would have outlived their famines rather than those born during times of famine. The well-fed children also begat as adults rather offspring. „These effects were more pronounced among young people and those with low socioeconomic status“, the researchers write further.

Nutritional deficiency in childhood therefore does not promote adaptation to times of need. Rather, people who were starving in the early years of life, even under conditions of abundance are more prone to „Prosperity diseases“ such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. This circumstance was previously - apparently erroneously - also justified by the fact that the body was trained by the time of need to utilize nutrients maximum.

Effects of malnutrition
Today, every fourth child in the world under the age of five suffers from chronic malnutrition. 80 percent of these children live in only 14 countries - Africa and Asia are hardest hit. The children's aid organization UNICEF reports, citing the UNICEF report on the nutritional situation of children and mothers, which was presented in Dublin in April.

The permanent shortage of nutrients has therefore far-reaching consequences, especially in the first months of life. Chronic malnourished children often suffer from cognitive impairment because brain development is compromised. With these injuries, the children would have to cope for life, which almost always meant that they could not make it out of poverty. Thus, malnutrition does not only affect the individual abilities of a child to learn and later earn a living independently, but also influences the country's economic and social progress, UNICEF reports. Since even the mothers of these children usually suffer from a permanent lack of nutrients, the babies are often already in the womb in a backlog, they can no longer catch up after birth. About one-third of infant deaths are due to chronic malnutrition. (Ag)

Picture: Dr. Klaus-Uwe Gerhardt