Understanding the nutritional regulation of 'healthy' fetal and infant growth and development

据估计，营养不足（包括关键微量营养素缺乏）和母乳喂养不足每年造成310万儿童死亡。此外，现在人们普遍认为，生命早期（包括胎儿期和婴儿期）的营养可以“规划”我们未来患各种非传染性疾病的风险；所谓的“健康和疾病的发育起源”（DOHaD）假说。综上所述，对早期营养不良对健康的直接和长期影响的重要性的理解，使我们更加重视预防疾病的“生命历程”战略，认识到生命早期的某些时期为旨在改善终身健康的营养干预提供了“机会之窗”。在孕产妇和婴儿普遍营养不良的人群中，在这一关键发育阶段优化生长对改善健康至关重要。本研究的主要目标是为营养不良与生长衰竭之间的联系机制提供证据基础，以便设计有效的干预措施。为了实现这一目标，本研究将集中在四个主要目标上：1。提高我们对胎儿和婴儿发育“正常”和“异常”的理解，特别关注生长和大脑发育。确定母体营养（怀孕前和怀孕期间）对胎儿和婴儿生长和大脑发育的影响机制。提高我们对婴儿营养与生长发育联系机制的理解，特别关注母亲营养和母乳质量。利用这项研究确定可能的营养干预措施，以改善全球妇女的营养和婴儿的健康结果，并在新的试验中对这些干预措施进行测试。这项研究将主要集中在低收入和中等收入环境中，但对全球的营养脆弱性也有影响。

It is estimated that undernutrition (including deficiencies of key micronutrients) and sub-optimal breastfeeding is the cause of 3.1 million child deaths annually. Further, it is now widely accepted that nutrition during early life (including fetal life and early infancy) may 'programme' our future risk of a wide array of non-communicable diseases; the so called 'Developmental Origins of Health and Disease' (DOHaD) hypothesis. Taken together, this understanding of the importance of both the immediate and longer-term health consequences of undernutrition during our early life period, has placed a much greater focus on a 'life-course' strategy for disease prevention, recognising that there are periods in early-life that provide a 'window of opportunity' for nutrition interventions aimed at improving life-long health. In populations with widespread maternal and infant undernutrition, optimising growth during this critical phase of development is fundamental for improving health. The key ambition of this research is to provide an evidence base on the mechanisms that link undernutrition to growth failure, so effective interventions can be designed. To meet this ambition, this research will focus on four main objectives:1. To improve our understanding of what 'normal' and 'abnormal' fetal and infant development, with a specific focus on growth and brain development.2. To identify mechanisms through which maternal nutrition (before and during pregnancy) impacts on fetal and infant growth and brain development.3. To advance our understanding of the mechanisms linking infant nutrition to growth and development, with a specific focus on maternal nutrition and breast milk quality.4. To use this research to identify possible nutrition interventions for improvements in women's nutrition and infant health outcomes globally, and to test these interventions in new trials.This research will largely be focused in low- and middle-income settings, but with implications for nutritionally vulnerability globally.