Dutch Famine of 1944 - Legacy

Legacy

This famine was close to unique as it took place in a modern, developed and literate country, albeit suffering under the privations of occupation and war (other example: the famine during the siege of Leningrad). The well-documented experience has allowed scientists to measure the effects of famine on human health.

The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study, carried out by the departments of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Gynecology and Obstetrics and Internal Medicine of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit of the University of Southampton in Britain, found that the children of pregnant women exposed to famine were more susceptible to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, microalbuminuria and other health problems.

Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were also smaller than average. These data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation.