Infant Feeding and Later Health Exploring Mechanisms to Improve Preventive Approaches

Accumulated scientific evidence demonstrates that environmental cues, including nutrition during sensitive time periods of developmental plasticity, induce long-lasting programming effects on later health, performance, and disease risks. A particularly sensitive period comprises the “First 1,000 Days of Life” including pregnancy and the first two postnatal years. Powerful effects of early life nutrition and growth on later health, physical and mental performance, and risk of noncommunicable diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, allergy, asthma, and some cancers) have been demonstrated. Proposed mechanisms include modification of growth, body composition, epigenome, metabolome, hormones, and microbiome. In this chapter, we provide examples without discussing the microbiome
as it is addressed in another contribution. Understanding underlying mechanisms of early nutrition programming is of paramount importance to establish better strategies for effective health promotion. This could facilitate more targeted interventions in susceptible subgroups, aiming at greater efficacy, efficiency, and cost-benefit ratios. Close trans-disciplinary collaboration between clinicians, scientists, and bioinformatics specialists is needed to link clinical characterization with biomarkers and large dataset evaluation utilizing artificial intelligence. The results may provide major benefits for scientific understanding, opportunities for future research, promotion of public health, nutrition recommendations, and development of improved food products.