From: Keith Henson (hkhenson@rogers.com)
Date: Sat 02 Jul 2005 - 13:04:53 GMT
At 07:44 AM 02/07/05 -0400, Denis Donovan wrote:
>In one of Dawkins's books there is a brief discussion of how maternal
>nutritional status 'informs' the developing fetus about the nature of the
>nutritional environment into which it will be born -- with the obvious
>consequences of greater predisposition to conditions such as diabetes if
>the mother is nutritionally deprived during pregnancy ("I'll have the baby
>but I refuse to gain weight and lose my figure") and the baby is born into
>a world of gluttony. Can anyone recall the location of this brief discussion?
>
>Additionally, is anyone aware of good research on the degree to which
>maternal nutritional status during pregnancy actually determines
>post-natal metabolic 'style'?
The only thing I can think of is the starvation of the Dutch near the end
of WW II. That did have long lasting effects on the children, but I can't
recall exactly what they were. It depended a lot on timing. There have
been extensive studies on the consequences, even into the next generation.
Keith Henson
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