[Effects of childhood nutrition on adult health]

Nutrition and health occupy a long period from the fetal age to adolescence. The interaction between genes and nutrients is one of the most interesting aspects. Health depends on genetic and environmental factors, the most important of which is nutrition. There is a need to define mechanisms and evaluate specific hypotheses in controlled animal experiments and clinical trials in humans. The effects must be permanent, remaining long after the nutritional deficiency or excess has disappeared. This presupposes the existence of critical periods in organ development and biochemical or physiological maturation, during which stimuli leave a permanent imprint. Nutrients can affect the structural development of certain organs during critical periods, both in the fetal and neonatal periods, and can contribute to the development of a different organ structure during these critical periods, leaving permanent effects.The role of folic acid as the prime example of the interaction between genes and nutrients is well known. Folates play an important role in DNA synthesis because of their intervention in deoxyuridine and deoxythymidine methylation and their absence provokes severe disorders in DNA replication and synthesis, which can be precancerous. Periconceptional administration of folic acid is essential to prevent dysraphias (spina bifida). Equally, this nutrient is also important to homocysteine metabolism, which is derived from methionine metabolism and which is an important endothelial toxin. Pediatrics should carefully redefine the criteria for adapting feeding and nutrition not only to childhood health but also to adult well being and disease-free survival. The advent of molecular genetics and the possibility of identifying at-risk individuals and the risks to which they are exposed at an early age, even before birth, provides pediatricians with unique opportunities. However, the growth of knowledge and techniques makes it impossible to keep up to date with all the scientific findings concerning children's health. Nevertheless, as doctors, pediatricians need I would say they are obliged to keep up to date in order to serve as a bridge between science and the practical needs of children and their families. Pediatricians will continue to focus on children's health, although the emphasis will increasingly be placed on prevention rather than cure, and must be ever more aware that the child is the father of the man and that the future is in his hands.