The microcirculation - a target for developmental priming.
The microcirculation - a target for developmental priming.
There is increasing evidence that the early life environment, of which nutrition is a key component, acts through developmental adaptations to set the capacity of cardiovascular and metabolic pathways, and ultimately the limits to physiological challenges in later life. Sub-optimal maternal nutrition and fetal growth result in reduced microvascular perfusion and functional dilator capacity, which are strongly associated with later development of obesity, type 2 diabetes and hypertension. These conditions are also linked to microvascular rarefaction and remodeling that together limit capillary recruitment, reduce exchange capacity and increase diffusion distances of metabolic substrates, and increase local and overall peripheral resistance. Changes in small vessel structure and function may be seen very early, long before the onset of overt cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and may thus be a target for early therapeutic and life style intervention strategies. This article explores how a disadvantageous microvascular phenotype may result from perinatal priming and how developmental plasticity may become an important and additional risk determinant in susceptibility to cardio-metabolic disease in adult life.
microcirculation, developmental priming, nutrition, endothelium
1549-8719
Clough, Geraldine
9f19639e-a929-4976-ac35-259f9011c494
Norman, Mikael
ff5684df-1bc6-4d5d-8699-ecaddd74ccf3
5 February 2011
Clough, Geraldine
9f19639e-a929-4976-ac35-259f9011c494
Norman, Mikael
ff5684df-1bc6-4d5d-8699-ecaddd74ccf3
Abstract
There is increasing evidence that the early life environment, of which nutrition is a key component, acts through developmental adaptations to set the capacity of cardiovascular and metabolic pathways, and ultimately the limits to physiological challenges in later life. Sub-optimal maternal nutrition and fetal growth result in reduced microvascular perfusion and functional dilator capacity, which are strongly associated with later development of obesity, type 2 diabetes and hypertension. These conditions are also linked to microvascular rarefaction and remodeling that together limit capillary recruitment, reduce exchange capacity and increase diffusion distances of metabolic substrates, and increase local and overall peripheral resistance. Changes in small vessel structure and function may be seen very early, long before the onset of overt cardiovascular and metabolic disease, and may thus be a target for early therapeutic and life style intervention strategies. This article explores how a disadvantageous microvascular phenotype may result from perinatal priming and how developmental plasticity may become an important and additional risk determinant in susceptibility to cardio-metabolic disease in adult life.
This record has no associated files available for download.
More information
Published date: 5 February 2011
Keywords:
microcirculation, developmental priming, nutrition, endothelium
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 181119
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/181119
ISSN: 0167-6865
PURE UUID: 1c41f105-af30-4a5d-9d0b-1ced90d9a6df
Catalogue record
Date deposited: 14 Apr 2011 11:40
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 02:53
Export record
Altmetrics
Contributors
Author:
Mikael Norman
Download statistics
Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.
View more statistics