Nutrition in Early Life and Health Outcome

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you to submit manuscripts to this Issue entitled “Nutrition in Early Life and Health Outcome”.

Early life─the so-called “first 1000 days” between the time of conception to the child’s second birthday─has long been known to be a period of tremendous body growth and development, with a tripling of fetal weight in the third trimester of pregnancy, and yet another tripling between birth and 1 year of age. This is especially true regarding brain growth and maturation. Covering the huge amounts of nutrients required as “building blocks” or “fuels” to ensure such growth has long been felt to be the only role of early-life nutrition. However, in the early 1990s, another stake emerged when British epidemiologist David Barker and colleagues suggested that early life may be a critical time window during which nutrition impacts human health throughout the entire lifespan. Overwhelming evidence from cohort and experimental studies has since accumulated to support that hypothesis. Nutrients received in early life (or the lack thereof) may “program” physiological functions in the future adult through impacts on tissue development, hormone secretion, epigenetic modifications of genes in key metabolic pathways, or through an impact on infant microbiota, thus “setting the thermostat” for the risk of chronic disease through the entire lifespan of the future adult.

The objective of this Special Issue on “Nutrition in Early Life and Health Outcome” is to showcase the latest research focusing on topics among this non-comprehensive list:

• Protein intake in fetal and early postnatal life, catch-up growth, and risk of metabolic disease at mid- and long-term;
• Polyunsaturated fatty acids and infant neurodevelopment;
• Oligosaccharides in breast milk and infant protection against viral and bacterial infections;
• Nutrient deficiency/excess in breastmilk composition and infant health;
• Infant nutrition, infant microbiota, and consequences on health.

This Issue will accept manuscripts describing longitudinal studies from birth to mid- and long-term health outcomes. Clinical studies and meta-analyses are welcome, as well as experimental studies.

Prof. Dominique Darmaun
Dr. Clair-Yves Boquien
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Nutrients is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.