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Auxological perspectives on ‘growth’ in DOHaD

Part of: Sir David Barker Symposium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 August 2015

M. Lampl ,
A. Mummert  and
M. Schoen
M. Lampl*
Affiliation:
Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GAUSA
A. Mummert
Affiliation:
Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA Department of Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, GAUSA
M. Schoen
Affiliation:
Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: M. Lampl, Center for the Study of Human Health, Emory University, 107 Candler Library, 550 Asbury Circle, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. (Email mlampl@emory.edu)
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Abstract

David Barker established growth as a seminal link between early development and later health attainment and disease risk. This was nothing less than a paradigm shift in health and medicine, turning the focus of disease causality away from contemporary environmental influences to earliest growth as a time when functional anatomy and physiology sets in place critical structures and function for a lifetime.

Barker’s prodigious work investigated time- and place-specific interactions between maternal condition and exogenous environmental influences, focusing on how growth unfolds across development to function as a mechanistic link to ensuing health. Subsequent applications do not always attend to the specificity and sensitivity issues included in his original work, and commonly overlook the long-standing methods and knowledge base of auxology. Methodological areas in need of refinement include enhanced precision in how growth is represented and assessed. For example, multiple variables have been used as a referent for ‘growth,’ which is problematic because different body dimensions grow by different biological clocks with unique functional physiologies. In addition, categorical clinical variables obscure the spectrum of variability in growth experienced at the individual level. Finally, size alone is a limited measure as it does not capture how individuals change across age, or actually grow.

The ground-breaking notion that prenatal influences are important for future health gave rise to robust interest in studying the fetus. Identifying the many pathways by which size is realized permits targeted interventions addressing meaningful mechanistic links between growth and disease risk to promote health across the lifespan.

Keywords

auxologydevelopmental originsfetal growthfetologylifespan health
Type
Original Article
Information
Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease , Volume 6 , Issue 5: Themed Issue: David Barker commemorative meeting, September 2014; Prenatal Exposures and Health Outcomes , October 2015 , pp. 390 - 398
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Copyright
© Cambridge University Press and the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 2015 

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