Consequences of fetal programming for cardiovascular disease in adulthood

This Spotlight Issue of Microcirculation contains six current perspectives on the role of the intrauterine environment, especially maternal nutritional status and maternal diabetes, in influencing fetal growth and cardiovascular health in the offspring in later life. The reviews address issues such as the existence of a commonality of mechanism following both under-nutritional and over-nutritional states in utero; alterations in the placental fetal microcirculation in response to maternal and fetal changes; transmission of metabolic or nutritional perturbations affecting fetal endogenous antioxidant defense pathways; the presence of a disadvantageous microvascular phenotype resulting from perinatal priming; interactions between developmental programming and genetic variation in noncommunicable adult diseases such as hypertension and hypercholesterolemia; and unresolved questions on the independency and causal mechanisms for low birth weight/intrauterine growth restriction and the risk of developing the metabolic syndrome. These timely reviews highlight the accumulating evidence that changes in the intrauterine environment have pronounced effects on vascular function in the offspring whether due to maternal diabetes or altered maternal nutritional status or fetal and perinatal overnutrition.