People who were exposed to a famine in the womb shortly after the conception of a famine have more than twice as often diabetes than those who have not experienced extreme food shortages in the early pregnancy, according to a study 1 to more than ten million people born in Ukraine almost a century.

The results published today in the magazine Science provide insights into the long -term health consequences of famines during pregnancy. The extensive study also shows when developing babies are most susceptible to poor nutrition, says Peter Klimek, a data scientist who specializes in epidemiology at the Supply Chain Intelligence Institute in Vienna. "I haven't seen anything more comprehensive," says Klimek, who, in addition to the study, also says a perspective article 2 published.

long -term effects

Although the immediate and short-term effects of hunger crises 3 -such as malnutrition and nutrient lack-good are documented, it was difficult to determine the health consequences that people experience decades later. Such studies require the researchers to continuously persecute large groups of people over time, says L. H. Lumey, an epidemiologist at Columbia University in New York City and co -author of current work. Earlier studies in Austria 4 and the Netherlands 5 have found information that exposure to hunger during pregnancy can increase the risk of diabetes in later life. But these studies were relatively small or had uncertainties about the severity of the famine and the exposure of people, says Klimek.

lumey says that the famine from 1932 to 1933 in Ukraine, which at short notice resulted in about four million deaths, offered the opportunity to investigate the connection between prenatal food shortages and the risk of diabetes. The famine has a clearly defined time frame, affected a very large number of people and was thoroughly documented, he says.

Together with his colleagues, Lumey collected birth data from 10,186,016 Ukrainians, who were born between 1930 and 1938. These included more than 128,000 people in whom type 2 diabetes was diagnosed in the early years of the twentieth century.

double risk

In order to appreciate the severity of the famine that every person has experienced, the team analyzed the number of excessive deaths that occurred in 23 Ukrainian regions, including 16, which were affected by food shortages, and classified the areas as extreme, very difficult or no famine.

The group found that people who were born in the early 1934-who had been created during the highlight of famine-had a higher risk overall than to adults of type 2 diabetes than those who were not exposed to famine in the early development of the development. Among the people born in regions that were affected by extreme famine, the risk of developing this disease doubled. Those who were exposed to extreme hunger during pregnancy still had about 1.5 times more often to develop diabetes, decades after birth than those in regions without famine.

There was no increased risk of diabetes in people who were in the later stages of pregnancy during famine, which indicates that early pregnancy is the most susceptible time for exposure to malnutrition.

The results lay the foundation that researchers can carry out animal experiments in order to explore the mechanisms behind the increased risk of diabetes. For example, mutations in the DNA of the fetus during the famine could be so -called epigenetic changes. “We have this event where biologists can now bite their teeth, says Lumey.