Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T08:02:23.106Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

No evidence of programmed late-life mortality in the Finnish famine cohort

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

K. Saxton ,
A. Falconi ,
S. Goldman-Mellor  and
R. Catalano
K. Saxton
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, USA
A. Falconi
Affiliation:
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
S. Goldman-Mellor*
Affiliation:
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
R. Catalano
Affiliation:
School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
*
*Address for correspondence: Dr S. Goldman-Mellor, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, 50 University Hall, Berkeley, CA, USA. (Email sidragoldman@berkeley.edu)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The developmental origins hypothesis suggests that morbidity and premature mortality arise, in part, from adverse exposures in utero and early in development. Evidence suggests a connection between early nutritional deficits and adult morbidity; however, the effects on mortality have been less well studied and previous studies provide conflicting results. We extracted Finnish birth cohort death rates from the Human Mortality Database. Our test asks whether men or women born during the 1867–1868 Great Finnish Famine exhibited death rates in old age different from expected, based on death rates among Finnish cohorts born 1818–1866. We found no support for the argument that exposure to the Finnish famine in utero induced excess mortality from age 60 to 89 in either men or women. Our results suggest that the Finnish famine did not induce, via epigenetic changes or any other mechanism, premature mortality in older age among exposed individuals.

Keywords

gestationmortalitynutrition
Type
Brief Report
Information
Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 30 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1.Gluckman, PD, Hanson, MA, Beedle, AS. Early life events and their consequences for later disease: a life history and evolutionary perspective. Am J Hum Biol. 2007; 19, 1–19.Google Scholar
2.Heijmans, BT, Tobi, EW, Stein, AD, et al. Persistent epigenetic differences associated with prenatal exposure to famine in humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2008; 105, 17046–17049.Google Scholar
3.Tobi, EW, Lumey, LH, Talens, RP, et al. DNA methylation differences after exposure to prenatal famine are common and timing- and sex-specific. Hum Mol Genet. 2009; 18, 4046–4053.Google Scholar
4.Roseboom, TJ, van der Meulen, JH, Osmond, C, et al. Adult survival after prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine 1944–45. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2001; 15, 220–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5.Painter, RC, Roseboom, TJ, Bossuyt, PMM, et al. Adult mortality at age 57 after prenatal exposure to the Dutch Famine. Eur J Epidemiol. 2005; 20, 673–676.Google Scholar
6.Lumey, L, Stein, AD, Kahn, HS, et al. Cohort profile: the dutch hunger winter families study. Int J Epidemiol. 2007; 36, 1196–1204.Google Scholar
7.Pitkänen, KJ, Mielke, JH. Age and sex differentials in mortality during two nineteenth century population crises. Eur J Pop. 1993; 9, 1–32.Google Scholar
8.Kannisto, V, Christensen, K, Vaupel, JW. No increased mortality in later life for cohorts born during famine. Am J Epidemiol. 1997; 145, 987–994.Google Scholar
9.Pitkänen, K. Deprivation and Disease: Mortality During the Great Finnish Famine of the 1860s, 1993. Finnish Demographic Society: Helsinki.Google Scholar
10. Doblhammer G, van den Berg G, Lumey LH. Long-term effects of famine on life expectancy: a re-analysis of the Great Finnish Famine of 1866–1868. IZA Discussion Paper No. 5534. Available at: SSRN http://ssrn.com/abstract=1771256Google Scholar
11.Bressler, SL, Seth, AK. Wiener–Granger causality: a well established methodology. Neuroimage. 2011; 58, 323–329.Google Scholar
12. University of California, Berkeley (USA) and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (Germany). Human Mortality Database. Retrieved 1 June 2011, from www.mortality.org or www.humanmortality.deGoogle Scholar
13.Fisher, RA. Studies in crop variation: an examination of the yield of dressed grain from Broadbalk. J Agri Sci. 1921; 11, 107–135.Google Scholar
14.Wiener, N. The Theory of Prediction. In Modern Mathematics for the Engineer (ed. Beckenbach EF), 1956; pp. 165–190. McGraw-Hill: NewYork, USA.Google Scholar
15.Granger, CWJ. Investigating causal relations by econometric models and cross-spectral methods. Econometrica. 1969; 37, 424–438.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
16.Box, G, Jenkins, G, Reinsel, G. Time Series Analysis: Forecasting and Control, 3rd edn, 1994. Prentice Hall: London, UK.Google Scholar
17.Ljung, G, Box, G. On a measure of lack of fit in time series models. Biometrika. 1978; 65, 297–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
18.Chang, I, Tiao, G, Chen, C. Estimation of time series parameters in the presence of outliers. Technometrics. 1988; 30, 193–204.Google Scholar
19.McCleary, R, Hay, RA. Applied Time Series Analysis for the Social Sciences, 1980. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks.Google Scholar
20.Song, S. Does famine have a long-term effect on cohort mortality? Evidence from the 1959–1961 Great Leap Forward Famine in China. J Biosoc Sci. 2009; 41, 469–491.Google Scholar
21.Moore, SE, Fulford, AJ, Streatfield, PK, Persson, LÖ, Prentice, AM. Comparative analysis of patterns of survival by season of birth in rural Bangladeshi and Gambian populations. Int J Epidemiol. 2004; 33, 137–143.Google Scholar
22.Lumey, LH, Stein, AD, Susser, E. Prenatal famine and adult health. Annu Rev Public Health. 2011; 32, 237–262.Google Scholar
23.Moore, SE, Cole, TJ, Collinson, AC, et al. Prenatal or early postnatal events predict infectious deaths in young adulthood in rural Africa. Int J Epidemiol. 1999; 28, 1088–1095.Google Scholar
24.Risnes, KR, Vatten, LJ, Baker, JL, et al. Birthweight and mortality in adulthood: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Int J Epidemiol. 2011; 40, 647–661.Google Scholar
25.Gluckman, PD, Hanson, MA, Beedle, AS. Early life events and their consequences for later disease: a life history and evolutionary perspective. Am J Hum Biol. 2007; 19, 1–19.Google Scholar