Famine

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Distribution within Humanities and Social Sciences

Kinds of Famine

  • dutch famine


  • Selected Abstracts


    Famine Intensity and Magnitude Scales: A Proposal for an Instrumental Definition of Famine

    DISASTERS, Issue 4 2004
    Paul Howe
    Ambiguities in current usage of the term ,famine' have had tragic implications for response and accountability in a number of recent food crises. This paper proposes a new approach to defining famine based on the use of intensity and magnitude scales, where ,intensity' refers to the severity of the crisis at a given location and point in time, while ,magnitude' describes the aggregate impact of a crisis. The scales perform three operations on ,famine': first, moving from a binary conception of ,famine/no famine' to a graduated, multi-level definition; second, disaggregating the dimensions of intensity and magnitude; and third, assigning harmonised ,objective' criteria in place of subjective, case-by-case judgements. If adopted, the famine scales should contribute to more effective and proportionate responses, as well as greater accountability in future food crises. [source]


    The ripple that drowns?

    ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 2008
    India as economic history, Twentieth-century famines in China
    The twentieth century saw the virtual elimination of famine across most of the globe, but also witnessed some of the worst famines ever recorded. The causes usually given for these twentieth-century famines differ from those given for earlier famines, which tend to be more often blamed on harvest failures per se than on human agency. This paper reassesses two of the last century's most notorious famines, the Chinese Great Leap Famine of 1959,61 and the Great Bengal Famine of 1943,4, in the light of these rival perspectives. [source]


    The Irish grain trade from the Famine to the First World War

    ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 1 2004
    Liam Brunt
    This article presents the first consistent and continuous data series for the Irish grain trade, 1840-1914, showing that imports of wheat and maize rose massively. The resulting three-fold increase in Irish per caput wheat consumption occurred mostly before 1875 and brought it close to British levels by 1914. A consumer price index is constructed for the period, and it reveals that prices declined until 1900 and rose thereafter. Using the two new series (per caput wheat consumption and the price index), the authors estimate a demand function for wheat and show that the per caput increase was due to the rise in the real wage. [source]


    Allegiance and Illusion: Queen Victoria's Irish Visit of 1849

    HISTORY, Issue 288 2002
    James Loughlin
    This article examines Queen Victoria's first visit to Ireland in 1849. Taking place in the wake of the Great Famine, the occasion was, nevertheless, a great popular success and raised enduring expectations about inculcating loyalty to the Union among Irish Catholics. Through empirical analysis informed by insights drawn from studies of the social function of public ritual, this article will attempt to assess the visit's significance, especially the extent to which it evidenced authentic loyalty, and whether it deserved to be regarded as the potential harbinger of a loyal and Unionist Ireland. [source]


    The Save the Children Fund and the Russian Famine of 1921,23: Claims and Counter-Claims about Feeding "Bolshevik" Children,

    JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009
    LINDA MAHOOD
    Drawing on literature on the social construction of social problems, this paper examines the British Save the Children Fund's claims making activities regarding support for child famine victims in Russia in 1921,23. It examines 1) how the Fund constructed famine in Russia as a social problem that was worthy of British, and wider international, support and attention; 2) the rhetorical strategies used by the Fund to construct the causes of the famine for the British public; and 3) the claims the Fund made about why Britons should care about starving children in Russia. We also attend to counter-claims made about the Fund and its involvement with Russia. We used unpublished letters, memos and reports from The Save the Children Fund archives to examine how the Fund responded to attacks on its activities coming from Russian émigrés and from The Daily Express. We suggest that the examination of this case through the concept of claims making offers a lens to understand how children in distress in the early 20th century became the objects of British, and wider international aid. [source]


    Sequence variation of intergenic mitochondrial DNA spacers (mtDNA-IGS) of Phytophthora infestans (Oomycetes) and related species

    MOLECULAR ECOLOGY RESOURCES, Issue 1 2003
    R. A. M. Wattier
    Abstract The potato late-blight disease is caused by the pseudofungus Phytophthora infestans (Oomycetes). This pathogen was of historical importance as it caused the Irish Potato Famine. There is currently a worldwide resurgence of the disease. Following worldwide migrations as well as being able to discriminate P. infestans from related species are key issues. We present sequence variation of five inter-genic mitochondrial DNA spacers (mtDNA-IGS) for P. infestans and four related taxa. Intra and inter-taxon variation was observed showing potential for both molecular ecology and molecular systematic. [source]


    Biotechnology Can Defeat Famine

    NEW PERSPECTIVES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2004
    JIMMY CARTER
    No abstract is available for this article. [source]


    Famines in (South) Asia

    HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2004
    David Hall-Matthews
    Most historical studies of South Asian famines have appropriately taken a political economy approach, allowing them to critique colonial governance and free trade policy. It would be useful to see more work on social and enviromental aspects of famine. There is a danger, however, typified by Mike Davis' recent book, that analysis of the role of climate in causing famine can depoliticise the problem. Further studies are still needed of the politics of famine, under communist as well as capitalist systems. [source]


    Food, Functioning and Justice: From Famines to Eating Disorders

    THE JOURNAL OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2001
    Mika Lavaque-Manty
    First page of article [source]


    Famine Intensity and Magnitude Scales: A Proposal for an Instrumental Definition of Famine

    DISASTERS, Issue 4 2004
    Paul Howe
    Ambiguities in current usage of the term ,famine' have had tragic implications for response and accountability in a number of recent food crises. This paper proposes a new approach to defining famine based on the use of intensity and magnitude scales, where ,intensity' refers to the severity of the crisis at a given location and point in time, while ,magnitude' describes the aggregate impact of a crisis. The scales perform three operations on ,famine': first, moving from a binary conception of ,famine/no famine' to a graduated, multi-level definition; second, disaggregating the dimensions of intensity and magnitude; and third, assigning harmonised ,objective' criteria in place of subjective, case-by-case judgements. If adopted, the famine scales should contribute to more effective and proportionate responses, as well as greater accountability in future food crises. [source]


    The Need to Look Beyond the Production and Provision of Relief Seed: Experiences from Southern Sudan

    DISASTERS, Issue 4 2002
    Richard B. Jones
    Free distribution of seeds in selected areas of southern Sudan has been widespread as a way of increasing food security. Field research in areas targeted for seed relief found that farmer seed systems continue to meet the crop and varietal needs of farmers even following the 1998 famine. Donor investments in seed multiplication of improved sorghum have not been sustained due to a lack of effective demand for the improved seed beyond that created by the relief agencies. The article argues that rather than imposing outside solutions, whether through seed provisioning or seed production enterprises, greater attention needs to be given to building on the strengths of existing farmer systems and designing interventions to alleviate the weaknesses. The case is made to support dynamically the process of farmer experimentation through the informed introduction of new crops and varieties that can potentially reinforce the strength and diversity of local cropping systems. [source]


    Getting the Scale Right: A Comparison of Analytical Methods for Vulnerability Assessment and Household-level Targeting

    DISASTERS, Issue 2 2001
    Linda Stephen
    This paper introduces broad concepts of vulnerability, food security and famine. It argues that the concepts and theories driving development and implementation of vulnerability assessment tools are related to their utility. The review concludes that socio-geographic scale is a key issue, and challenge. It analyses three vulnerability assessment (VA) methods, using Ethiopia as a case study. Facing the challenges of vulnerability assessment and early warning requires providing accurate information at the required scale, useful for multiple decision-makers within realistic institutional capacities. [source]


    The ripple that drowns?

    ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW, Issue 2008
    India as economic history, Twentieth-century famines in China
    The twentieth century saw the virtual elimination of famine across most of the globe, but also witnessed some of the worst famines ever recorded. The causes usually given for these twentieth-century famines differ from those given for earlier famines, which tend to be more often blamed on harvest failures per se than on human agency. This paper reassesses two of the last century's most notorious famines, the Chinese Great Leap Famine of 1959,61 and the Great Bengal Famine of 1943,4, in the light of these rival perspectives. [source]


    CALORIE RESTRICTION AND AGING: A LIFE-HISTORY ANALYSIS

    EVOLUTION, Issue 3 2000
    Daryl P. Shanley
    Abstract., The disposable soma theory suggests that aging occurs because natural selection favors a strategy in which fewer resources are invested in somatic maintenance than are necessary for indefinite survival. However, laboratory rodents on calorie-restricted diets have extended life spans and retarded aging. One hypothesis is that this is an adaptive response involving a shift of resources during short periods of famine away from reproduction and toward increased somatic maintenance. The potential benefit is that the animal gains an increased chance of survival with a reduced intrinsic rate of senescence, thereby permitting reproductive value to be preserved for when the famine is over. We describe a mathematical life-history model of dynamic resource allocation that tests this idea. Senescence is modeled as a change in state that depends on the resources allocated to maintenance. Individuals are assumed to allocate the available resources to maximize the total number of descendants. The model shows that the evolutionary hypothesis is plausible and identifies two factors, both likely to exist, that favor this conclusion. These factors are that survival of juveniles is reduced during periods of famine and that the organism needs to pay an energetic "overhead" before any litter of offspring can be produced. If neither of these conditions holds, there is no evolutionary advantage to be gained from switching extra resources to maintenance. The model provides a basis to evaluate whether the life-extending effects of calorie-restriction might apply in other species, including humans. [source]


    When half of the population died: the epidemic of hemorrhagic fevers of 1576 in Mexico

    FEMS MICROBIOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 1 2004
    Rodofo Acuna-Soto
    Abstract During the 16th century, Mexico suffered a demographic catastrophe with few parallels in world's history. In 1519, the year of the arrival of the Spaniards, the population in Mexico was estimated to be between 15 and 30 million inhabitants. Eighty-one years later, in 1600, only two million remained. Epidemics (smallpox, measles, mumps), together with war, and famine have been considered to be the main causes of this enormous population loss. However, re-evaluation of historical data suggests that approximately 60,70% of the death toll was caused by a series of epidemics of hemorrhagic fevers of unknown origin. In order to estimate the impact of the 1576 epidemic of hemorrhagic fevers on the population we analyzed the historical record and data from the 1570 and 1580 censuses of 157 districts. The results identified several remarkable aspects of this epidemic: First, overall, the population loss for these 157 districts was 51.36%. Second, there was a clear ethnic preference of the disease, the Spanish population was minimally affected whereas native population had high mortality rate. Third, the outbreak originated in the valleys of central Mexico whence it evolved as an expansive wave. Fourth, a positive correlation between altitude and mortality in central Mexico was found. Fifth, a specific climatic sequence of events was associated with the initiation and dissemination of the hemorrhagic fevers. Although the last epidemic of hemorrhagic fevers in Mexico ended in 1815, many questions remain to be answered. Perhaps the most relevant ones are whether there is a possible reemergence of the hemorrhagic fevers and how vulnerable we are to the disease. [source]


    A Pragmatic Response to an Unexpected Constraint: Problem Representation in a Complex Humanitarian Emergency

    FOREIGN POLICY ANALYSIS, Issue 2 2009
    Thomas Knecht
    This paper elaborates a model of problem representation first presented by Billings and Hermann (1998). The foreign policy process begins when decision-makers specify policy goals and identify relevant constraints in response to a perceived problem. Although this initial problem representation often sets the course for subsequent policy, unanticipated constraints can arise that catch decision makers off-guard. Finding themselves in a context they did not anticipate to be in, decision makers may choose to alter their representation of the problem and/or change the course of policy. Billings and Hermann offer one piece of this puzzle by examining how decision makers re-represent problems; this paper provides the second piece by assessing how policies, not representations, change in response to new constraints. A case study of the U.S. response to the Ethiopian famine in the mid 1980s demonstrates that policy does not always follow problem representation. [source]


    Mother, Child, Race, Nation: The Visual Iconography of Rescue and the Politics of Transnational and Transracial Adoption

    GENDER & HISTORY, Issue 2 2003
    Laura Briggs
    ,Third World' poverty and hunger conjures up certain conventionalised images: thin children, with or without their mothers. This paper explores the genealogy of such images in the mid-twentieth century, and shows how they mobilise ideologies of ,rescue' while pointing away from structural (political, military and economic) explanations for poverty, famine and other disasters. These images had a counterpart in practices of transnational and transracial adoption, which became the subject of debate in the USA during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, and were at least as much about symbolic debates over race as the fate of particular children. Together, these visual and familial practices made US foreign and domestic poverty policy intelligible as a debate over whether to save women and children. When they cast the USA as rescuer, they made it all but impossible to understand what US political, military or economic power had to do with creating the problem. [source]


    Famines in (South) Asia

    HISTORY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2004
    David Hall-Matthews
    Most historical studies of South Asian famines have appropriately taken a political economy approach, allowing them to critique colonial governance and free trade policy. It would be useful to see more work on social and enviromental aspects of famine. There is a danger, however, typified by Mike Davis' recent book, that analysis of the role of climate in causing famine can depoliticise the problem. Further studies are still needed of the politics of famine, under communist as well as capitalist systems. [source]


    The effects of traumatic experiences on the infant,mother relationship in the former war zones of central Mozambique: The case of madzawde in Gorongosa

    INFANT MENTAL HEALTH JOURNAL, Issue 5 2003
    Victor Igreja
    This article addresses the ways in which years of war and periods of serious drought have affected the cultural representations of the populations in Gorongosa District, Mozambique. In the wake of these events different cultural and historical representations have been disrupted, leaving the members of these communities with fragmented protective and resilience factors to cope effectively. Emphasis is placed on the disruption of madzawde, a mechanism that regulates the relationship between the child (one to two years of life) and the mother, and the family in general. The war, aggravated by famine, prevented the populations from performing this child-rearing practice. Nearly a decade after the war ended, the posttraumatic effects of this disruption are still being observed both by traditional healers and health-care workers at the district hospital. The results suggest that this disruption is affecting and compromising the development of the child and the physical and psychological health of the mother. An in-depth understanding of this level of trauma and posttraumatic effects is instrumental in making a culturally sensitive diagnosis and in developing effective intervention strategies based on local knowledge that has not been entirely lost but is nonetheless being questioned. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health. [source]


    Long term consequences of the 1944,1945 Dutch famine on the insulin-like growth factor axis

    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CANCER, Issue 4 2004
    Sjoerd G. Elias
    Abstract The insulin-like growth factor axis is highly responsive to nutritional status and may be involved as one of the underlying mechanisms through which caloric restriction could affect cancer risk. High levels of circulating insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I, or IGF-I relative to IGF binding protein (IGFBP)-3 have been related to various human cancer types. In a group of 87 postmenopausal women, we found that childhood exposure to the 1944,1945 Dutch famine was associated with increased plasma levels of IGF-I and IGFBP-3, whereas IGFBP-1 and -2 levels were weakly decreased. These results are opposite to immediate responses seen under starvation and we hypothesize that this could indicate a permanent overshoot upon improvement of nutritional status after the famine. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


    Anthropological Perspectives on the Trafficking of Women for Sexual Exploitation

    INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION, Issue 1 2004
    Lynellyn D. Long
    Contemporary trafficking operations transform traditional bride wealth and marriage exchanges (prestations) by treating women's sexuality and bodies as commodities to be bought and sold (and exchanged again) in various Western capitals and Internet spaces. Such operations are also global with respect to scale, range, speed, diversity, and flexibility. Propelling many trafficking exchanges are political economic processes, which increase the trafficking of women in times of stress, such as famine, unemployment, economic transition, and so forth. However, the disparity between the global market operations, which organize trafficking, and the late nineteenth century social/public welfare system of counter-trafficking suggests why the latter do not effectively address women's risks and may even expose them to increased levels of violence and stress. Drawing on historical accounts, anthropological theory, and ethnographic work in Viet Nam and Bosnia and Herzegovina, this essay examines how specific cultural practices embedded in family and kinship relations encourage and rationalize sexual trafficking of girls and young women in times of stress and dislocation. The essay also analyses how technologies of power inform both trafficking and counter-trafficking operations in terms of controlling women's bodies, sexuality, health, labour, and migration. By analysing sexual trafficking as a cultural phenomenon in its own right, such an analysis seeks to inform and address the specific situations of girls and young women, who suffer greatly from the current migration regimes. [source]


    Vegetation dynamics in western Uganda during the last 1000 years: climate change or human induced environmental degradation?

    AFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 2009
    Julius B. Lejju
    Abstract A multi-proxy analysis of microfossils from sedimentary records, together with evidence from historical and archaeological data, has provided evidence of vegetation dynamics and human environment interactions in western Uganda for the last 1000 years. Pollen, fungal spores and phytoliths extracted from sediment cores obtained from a papyrus swamp at Munsa archaeological site indicate a relatively wet and forested environment in western Uganda prior to ca 1000 yr bp (cal 977,1159 ad). A subsequent decline in forest vegetation occurred from ca 920 yr bp (cal 1027,1207 ad). However, the deforestation period occurred during a wet period as registered in the River Nile water records, suggesting a human induced deforestation at Munsa rather than reduced precipitation. Increased numbers of herbivores, presumably domesticated cattle, postdeforestation are evidenced by the presence of dung fungal spores and broad accord with the archaeological evidence for initial occupation of the site at Munsa and the establishment of a mixed economy based on crops, cattle and iron working between 1000 and 1200 ad. From ca 200 yr bp (cal 1647,1952 ad), forest recovery occurred at Munsa site and appears to reflect abandonment of the site, as suggested by archaeological evidence, possibly following a period of prolonged drought and famine between 1600 and 1800 ad, as recounted in the oral rich traditions of western Uganda and also reflected by low water levels of River Nile. [source]


    Food Security in China and Contingency Planning: the Significance of Grain Reserves

    JOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2006
    Hendrik J. Bruins
    China is inhabited by ca 20 percent of the world population, but has only 7 percent of global arable land and only 6.6 percent of global freshwater resources. These unfavourable relationships between population size and the basic resources for food production , soil and water , require careful food security and contingency planning by the Chinese authorities. The country has been remarkably successful in raising its food production since 1949 at a faster rate (400 percent) than the increase in its population (240 percent). This has basically been achieved by increasing the yields per unit area with enhanced fertilizer use, as the total size of arable land has been decreasing in recent years. Though China attempts to be largely self-sufficient in food grain production, two possible contingency scenarios are suggested that might cause grave problems: (1) severe multi-annual drought; (2) reduced chemical fertilizer manufacturing. If Chinese food production would drop as a result by, say, 33 percent, famine, the dreaded scourge throughout Chinese history, might recur. A shortage of ca 150 million tons of food grains cannot easily be buffered by the volume of food grains annually traded on the world market, ca 240 million tons. Much of this amount tends to be committed already to traditional buyers, as most countries in the world have to import food grains. Cash reserves, therefore, may not guarantee food purchases, because global grain reserves are limited and declining. The formation and maintenance of large internal food grain reserves in China, common in its tradition and ancient history, seem the only realistic contingency planning strategy to avert famine in case of a severe decline in its food production in future crisis years. [source]


    Zimbabwe's Drought Relief Programme in the 1990s: A Re-Assessment Using Nationwide Household Survey Data

    JOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2006
    Lauchlan T. Munro
    Zimbabwe's Drought Relief Programme was hailed in the 1980s and 1990s as an effective response to a food crisis in a poor country. International observers in particular credited the Programme with preventing famine and protecting livelihoods. Even before the current political turmoil and the ensuing politicisation of Drought Relief that have afflicted Zimbabwe since 2000, Zimbabwean authors were more sceptical about the effectiveness of Drought Relief. Both sides in the debate, however, failed to substantiate their arguments with national household survey data on who got what kind of assistance from Drought Relief, but rather relied on administrative data, qualitative interviews or sub-national surveys. Drawing its inspiration from WHO's minimum evaluation procedure, this article uses data from four nationwide household surveys in 1992,1993 and 1995,1996 and various definitions of poverty to ask whether Drought Relief provided poor people with relevant, timely and adequate assistance in the 1990s. The analysis suggests that Drought Relief was effective in supporting drought-affected smallholders during the 1990s. Drought Relief generally had a slight pro-poor bias. Unfortunately, Drought Relief since 2000 has a very different character. [source]


    Modernizing UK health services: ,short-sharp-shock' reform, the NHS subsistence economy, and the spectre of health care famine

    JOURNAL OF EVALUATION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE, Issue 2 2005
    Bruce G. Charlton MD
    Abstract Modernization is the trend for societies to grow functionally more complex, efficient and productive. Modernization usually occurs by increased specialization of function (e.g. division of labour, such as the proliferation of specialists, in, medicine),, combined, with, increased, organization, in, order to co-ordinate the numerous specialized functions (e.g. the increased size of hospitals and specialist teams, including the management of these large groups). There have been many attempts to modernize the National Health Service (NHS) over recent decades, but it seems that none have significantly enhanced either the efficiency or output of the health care system. The reason may be that reforms have been applied as a ,drip-drip' of central regulation, with the consequence that health care has become increasingly dominated by the political system. In contrast, a ,short-sharp-shock' of radical and rapid modernization seems to be a more successful strategy for reforming social systems , in-between waves of structural change the system is left to re-orientate towards its client group. An example was the Flexner-initiated reform of US medical education which resulted in the closure of nearly half the medical colleges, an immediate enhancement in quality and efficiency of the system and future growth based on best institutional practices. However, short-sharp-shock reforms would probably initiate an NHS ,health care famine' with acute shortages and a health care crisis, because the NHS constitutes a ,subsistence economy' without any significant surplus of health services. The UK health care system must grow to generate a surplus before it can adequately be modernized. Efficient and rapid growth in health services could most easily be generated by stimulating provision outside the NHS, using mainly staff trained abroad and needs-subsidized ,item-of-service'-type payment schemes. Once there is a surplus of critically vital health services (e.g. acute and emergency provision), then radical modernization should rapidly improve the health service by a cull of low-quality and inefficient health care providers. [source]


    The Save the Children Fund and the Russian Famine of 1921,23: Claims and Counter-Claims about Feeding "Bolshevik" Children,

    JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL SOCIOLOGY, Issue 1 2009
    LINDA MAHOOD
    Drawing on literature on the social construction of social problems, this paper examines the British Save the Children Fund's claims making activities regarding support for child famine victims in Russia in 1921,23. It examines 1) how the Fund constructed famine in Russia as a social problem that was worthy of British, and wider international, support and attention; 2) the rhetorical strategies used by the Fund to construct the causes of the famine for the British public; and 3) the claims the Fund made about why Britons should care about starving children in Russia. We also attend to counter-claims made about the Fund and its involvement with Russia. We used unpublished letters, memos and reports from The Save the Children Fund archives to examine how the Fund responded to attacks on its activities coming from Russian émigrés and from The Daily Express. We suggest that the examination of this case through the concept of claims making offers a lens to understand how children in distress in the early 20th century became the objects of British, and wider international aid. [source]


    The need for integration of drought monitoring tools for proactive food security management in sub-Saharan Africa

    NATURAL RESOURCES FORUM, Issue 4 2008
    Tsegaye Tadesse
    Abstract Reducing the impact of drought and famine remains a challenge in sub-Saharan Africa despite ongoing drought relief assistance in recent decades. This is because drought and famine are primarily addressed through a crisis management approach when a disaster occurs, rather than stressing preparedness and risk management. Moreover, drought planning and food security efforts have been hampered by a lack of integrated drought monitoring tools, inadequate early warning systems (EWS), and insufficient information flow within and between levels of government in many sub-Saharan countries. The integration of existing drought monitoring tools for sub-Saharan Africa is essential for improving food security systems to reduce the impacts of drought and famine on society in this region. A proactive approach emphasizing integration requires the collective use of multiple tools, which can be used to detect trends in food availability and provide early indicators at local, national, and regional scales on the likely occurrence of food crises. In addition, improving the ability to monitor and disseminate critical drought-related information using available modern technologies (e.g., satellites, computers, and modern communication techniques) may help trigger timely and appropriate preventive responses and, ultimately, contribute to food security and sustainable development in sub-Saharan Africa. [source]


    Maternal Nutrition and Perinatal Survival

    NUTRITION REVIEWS, Issue 10 2001
    David Rush M.D.
    The simple relationship between maternal macro-nutrient status and perinatal survival (increased ma-cronutrient intake , increased maternal weight and/or weight gain , increased fetal growth , improved survival) that is usually posited is no longer defensible. First, maternal weight and weight gain are remarkably resistant to either dietary advice or supplementation; further, increased birth weight attributable to maternal nutrition does not necessarily increase perinatal survival (because prepregnant weight is positively associated with both birth weight and higher perinatal mortality). Finally, whereas dietary supplements during pregnancy may have a modest effect on birth weight in nonfamine conditions (by contrast with a large effect in famine or near-famine conditions), their impact is not mediated by maternal energy deposition. Rather, the component of maternal weight gain associated with accelerated fetal growth is maternal water (presumably plasma) volume. [source]


    Perceived health of adults after prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine

    PAEDIATRIC & PERINATAL EPIDEMIOLOGY, Issue 4 2003
    Tessa J. Roseboom
    Summary People who were undernourished in early gestation are more obese, have a more atherogenic lipid profile, and altered blood coagulation and seem to have an increased risk of coronary heart disease. We now report on whether they also feel less healthy. We therefore assessed the perceived health of 50-year-old-men and women born alive as singletons around the time of the Dutch famine in the Wilhelmina Gasthuis in Amsterdam. People who had been exposed to famine in early gestation, but not those exposed in mid- or late gestation, more often rated their health as poor (10.3% vs. to 4.9% in the unexposed, odds ratio (OR) 2.2 [1.0, 4.8]). The effect of exposure to famine in early gestation on perceived health could only partly be explained by an increased prevalence of coronary heart disease, respiratory diseases, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, hypercholesterolaemia or cancer (adjusted OR 2.2 [0.9, 5.2]). Adjustment for adult risk factors (BMI, LDL/HDL cholesterol ratio, blood pressure, smoking, lung function) also attenuated the results to some extent (adjusted OR 1.9 [0.6, 5.5]). People who were exposed to famine in early gestation were not only less healthy in terms of objective measures of health but they also felt less healthy. Because poor perceived health is a strong predictor of mortality, we may expect increased mortality in people who were exposed to famine in early gestation in the future. [source]


    A possible link between prenatal exposure to famine and breast cancer: A preliminary study,

    AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN BIOLOGY, Issue 6 2006
    R.C. Painter
    In a study of 475 women born around the 1944,1945 Dutch famine, women exposed to prenatal famine more often reported a history of breast cancer than nonexposed women (hazard ratio, 2.6; 95% confidence interval, 0.9,7.7). They also had alterations in reproductive risk factors. Prenatal famine may increase breast cancer incidence. Am. J. Hum. Biol. 18:853,856, 2006. © 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]