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They Are What You Eat: Can Nutritional Factors during Gestation and Early Infancy Modulate the Neonatal Immune
1Clinical Research Department, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
The ontogeny of the human immune system is sensitive to nutrition even in the very early embryo, with both deficiency and excess of macro- and micronutrients being potentially detrimental. Neonates are particularly vulnerable to infectious disease due to the immaturity of the immune system and modulation of nutritional immunity may play a role in this sensitivity. This review examines whether nutrition around the time of conception, throughout pregnancy, and in early neonatal life may impact on the developing infant immune system.
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