EDITORIALS
Prenatal nutrition and asthma: hope or hype?
Correspondence to:
Dr S O Shaheen, National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London, Emmanuel Kaye Building, Manressa Road, London SW3 6LR, UK; s.shaheen@imperial.ac.uk
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
David Barker’s "fetal origins" hypothesis has changed the way we think about the aetiology of adult onset diseases, such as coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes.1 Underpinning the epidemiological evidence are recent animal data which suggest that fetal programming of these diseases by prenatal nutrition may be mediated through epigenetic mechanisms.2 If adult onset disease is partly programmed in utero, it seems even more plausible that the prenatal environment influences the inception of asthma, which may first manifest in infancy. A number of exposures during pregnancy have been implicated3–5 and, although data are conflicting, associations with birth anthropometry prompted speculation that prenatal nutrition might programme fetal lung and immune development leading to asthma and atopy.6 Given that the diet of pregnant mothers has clearly changed considerably while asthma has been rising, the notion that it might be modified as a strategy for the primary prevention of asthma has considerable
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