Prenatal undernutrition and cognitive function in late adulthood:
At the end of World War II, a severe 5-mo famine struck the cities in the western part of The Netherlands. At its peak, the rations dropped to as low as 400 calories per day. In 1972, cognitive performance in 19-y-old male conscripts was reported not to have been affected by exposure to the famine before birth. In the present study, we show that cognitive function in later life does seem affected by prenatal undernutrition. We found that at age 56 to 59, men and women exposed to famine during the early stage of gestation performed worse on a selective attention task, a cognitive ability that usually declines with increasing age. We hypothesize that this decline may be an early manifestation of an accelerated cognitive aging process.
Below the fold on the y-axis malnutrition prevalence, weight for age (% of children under 5), on the x-axis GNI per capita PPP log-transformed (wealthy countries to the right). The size of the bubbles are proportional to population size.
I see a harmonious society in our future!
Razib Khan’s degrees are in biochemistry and biology. He has blogged about genetics since 2002, previously worked in software development, is an Unz Foundation Junior Fellow and lives in the western US. He loves habaneros.
September 14th, 2010 at 3:16 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by razib khan, Ron Simon, Maggie, World Amazing Things, Sains & Teknologi and others. Sains & Teknologi said: The child is the father of the man | Gene Expression: Prenatal undernutrition and cognitive function in late adult… http://bit.ly/anxj09 [...]
September 14th, 2010 at 8:26 am
My father told me that when he took his tanks over the border from Belgium to the Netherlands, it was visible to the naked eye that the Nazis had been starving the Dutch.
September 14th, 2010 at 8:41 am
german honor that is, after all, the dutch took in german children who were hungry in world war 1.
September 14th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Razib, since the Dutch “hunger winter” cohort seems to have grown old without an outbreak of mass disorder in the Netherlands (recent disorder seems more an immigrant phenomenon), it does seem that cultural and economic advantage can absorb one malnourished cohort without noticeable stress on the system.
btw, what do you mean by your closing remark? are you admiring the Chinese or being sarcastic?
September 14th, 2010 at 11:40 am
I know a lot of Chinese who were born in the late 1950′s and early 1960′s. This can’t be good news for t hem.