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IJE Advance Access originally published online on January 13, 2005
International Journal of Epidemiology 2005 34(1):5-12; doi:10.1093/ije/dyh309
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IJE vol.34 no.1 © International Epidemiological Association 2005; all rights reserved.

Reprints and Reflections

Lasting effects of early environmental influences

René Dubos, Ph.D. (M.D. Hon.), Dwayne Savage, Ph.D. and Russell Schaedler, M.D.

The Rockefeller University, New York, New York 10021

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

... the childhood shews the man

As morning shews the day ...

JOHN MILTON

Paradise Regained


   Social determinants of growth and health
 
As commonly used, the phrase ‘early influences’ denotes the conditioning of behavior by the experiences of very early life. Early experiences, however, do more than conditioning behavioural patterns; they also affect profoundly and lastingly many biological characteristics of the adult. I shall show that, in animals, events occurring during the very first days of life determine the initial growth rate, the maximum adult size, the efficiency in utilization of food, and the resistance to infection, malnutrition, and other stressful stimuli.

Early influences are, of course, at least [as] important in human life as they are in animal life. In fact, the experiments to be reported here were designed to provide experimental models for the study of socio-medical problems first recognized in human populations.

During the past century, for example, there has been a constant . . . [Full Text of this Article]


   Indigenous microbiota, growth, and food utilization
 

   Foster mothering, weaning weights, and adult size
 

   Nutrition of the lactating mother and growth of the young
 

   Early subclinical infections and physical growth
 

   The multiple effects of early infections
 

   Nutritional state and resistance to disease
 

   The experimental study of sociomedical problems
 

   Summary
 

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