[Late effects of nutritional deficiency during the first year of life]

"Programming" may be defined as a process whereby a stimulus or an insult applied during a "critical" or "sensitive" period of development can result in a long-term or permanent effect in the organism, with consequences for a number of metabolic, developmental and pathologic processes. The effect may sometimes occur after a long period of latency. Foetal life and infancy are such critical periods in man. Five examples of such programming are described from experiments in rats and baboons, after which the author discusses how nutritional deficiencies in foetal life and in infancy, either alone or combined with other adverse environmental factors, may have important consequences in later life.