Malnutrition: Cruel term consequences of hunger - Spiegel Online

Anyone suffering from malnutrition as a child whose body is weakened for life. This shows, according to a British study in extreme situations: When famine badly affected the health and mortality increases. Thus the researchers a presumption according to which facilitates nutrient deficiency in early childhood adaptation to adversity disagree.

that the nutrient supply in early childhood influences later health is undisputed. Studies show that people who lack suffered in childhood, as adults under excess conditions are more prone to cardiovascular diseases or metabolic disorders such as type II diabetes.

This has also been explained by the fact that the metabolism has to adapt to these circumstances and maximum nutrients recycled. This initiated some researchers suggesting that these people face particularly well as a good nutrient recyclers times of need.

Helpful church records from Finland

In order to examine this hypothesis, the researchers evaluated by Adam Hayward from the University of Sheffield parish registers of Finnish municipalities in 1867 and 1868, particularly hard hit during the years of extreme famine. At that time the population of Finland fell by eight percent.

Both men and women to birth their harvests were driving around, survived the famine, rather than those people who are suffering from hunger in early childhood. They also testified during the famine rather young. This effect was particularly pronounced in people from lower social classes, who suffered most from the poor harvests – the researchers further evidence that deficiency in infancy restricts the subsequent resistance

.

for nutritionists Berthold Koletzko from the University of Munich, this result is not surprising, but it confirms an earlier study from the Gambia. Thus, behind the long-term effect of malnutrition epigenetic mechanisms, ie an altered activation of certain sections in the human genome. “There are many other data indicate that early malnutrition the body not later strengthens and weakens,” says Koletzko.

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