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The Early Life Origins of Cardiovascular Disease

  • Genetics, Environment, Behavior and Risk Reduction (S Padmanabhan, Section Editor)
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Abstract

Cardiovascular disease continues to impose a high societal and economic burden. Although it occurs primarily in later life, there is strong evidence that it originates in early life. The nutritional environment that an unborn child is exposed to can heavily influence later disease risk, with nutritional exposures altering organ development and programming metabolic changes that are then maintained during the life course. Epigenetic changes induced by the early life environment are thought to be a key mechanism by which these early life events influence subsequent disease risk. Here, we review the emerging role of epigenetics in the development of cardiovascular disease.

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Acknowledgments

KMG is supported by the National Institute for Health Research through the NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre and by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013), project Early Nutrition under grant agreement no. 289346.

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Conflict of Interest

Robert Murray and Karen Lillycrop have no conflicts of interest. Keith Godfrey reports other from Nestle Nutrition Institute, grants from Abbott Nutrition and Nestec, outside the submitted work; In addition, Dr. Godfrey has a patent phenotype prediction pending, a patent predictive use of CpG methylation pending, and a patent maternal nutrition composition pending.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Academic Unit of Human Development and Health, Southampton, UK

    Robert Murray & Keith M. Godfrey

  2. MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit and NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre, University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Keith M. Godfrey

  3. Centre for Biological Sciences, Faculty of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Developmental Sciences, Southampton General Hospital, University of Southampton, Tremona Road, Southampton, SO16 6YD, UK

    Karen A. Lillycrop

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  1. Robert Murray
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Correspondence to Karen A. Lillycrop.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Genetics, Environment, Behavior and Risk Reduction

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Murray, R., Godfrey, K.M. & Lillycrop, K.A. The Early Life Origins of Cardiovascular Disease. Curr Cardiovasc Risk Rep 9, 15 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12170-015-0442-9

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