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British Medical Bulletin 60:1-3 (2001)
© 2001 Oxford University Press

Preface

D J P Barker

The first 10% of the full text of this article appears below.

Like other living creatures, human beings are ‘plastic’ in early life: their growth and development are moulded by the environment. Although the growth of the fetus is driven by the generative programme contained in its genome, it is limited by the supply of nutrients from the mother. There are many reasons why it may be advantageous, in evolutionary terms, for the body's structure and function to remain plastic in early life and this is a general phenomenon of early development.

The human baby responds and adapts to the nutrients it receives by altering its production of hormones and the sensitivity of its tissues to them, by changing its . . . [Full Text of this Article]


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