The Biology of the First 1,000 Days (Oxidative Stress and Disease)

The first 1,000 days, from conception to two years of age, is a critical period of growth and development. Exposures to dietary, environmental, hormonal, and other stressors during this window have been associated with an increased risk of poor health outcomes, some of which are irreversible. The book addresses this crucial interval of early life across biological disciplines, linking concepts related to all biological fields to outcomes during the first 1,000 days (e.g. fetal growth and pregnancy outcomes) and beyond (e.g. gut microbiome and cardiovascular disease later in life). The strength of this book lies in its cross-disciplinary nature.

Crystal D. Karakochuk, PhD, RD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Food, Nutrition, and Health at the University of British Columbia, and an investigator in Healthy Starts at BC Children’s Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She has worked internationally as a nutritionist for the United Nations World Food Programme (Rwanda, Malawi, Ethiopia, and Rome) and UNICEF (New York and Timor-Leste). Her research focuses on anemia, nutritional biomarkers (namely, iron and zinc), the effect of inflammation on nutritional biomarkers, and genetic hemo-globinopathies and blood disorders (e.g., sickle cell).

Kyly  C.  Whitfield,  PhD,  is  an  assistant  professor  in  the  Department  of  Applied  Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Her  research  focuses  on  identifying  culturally  appropriate  public  health  interven-tions  to  combat  micronutrient  deficiencies  in  low-resource  settings,  particularly  among  lactating  mothers  and  their  infants.  Her  current  work  explores  fortification  to address thiamin deficiency among breastfed infants in Southeast Asia. She is also interested in exploring the long-term effects of infant feeding behaviors on disease risk later in life.

Tim J. Green, PhD, is a principal nutritionist in the Healthy Mothers, Babies, and Children Theme at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, and an affiliate professor in the Discipline of Paediatrics at the University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia. His research focuses on micronutrients in prepregnancy, preg-nancy,  lactation,  and  early  life  with  studies  conducted  in  Canada,  Oceania,  Asia,  and Africa. His group seeks to identify micronutrient deficiencies through nutrition surveys, better define micronutrient requirements and pregnancy outcomes in these groups  through  randomized  control  studies,  and  develop  sustainable  strategies  to  improve micronutrient status.

Klaus Kraemer, PhD, is the managing director of the Sight and Life Foundation, a  nutrition  think  tank  working  toward  a  world  free  from  malnutrition,  headquar-tered  in  Basel,  Switzerland;  and  an  adjunct  associate  professor  in  the  Department  of  International  Health  of  Johns  Hopkins  Bloomberg  School  of  Public  Health,  Baltimore,  Maryland.  With  over  30  years  of  experience  in  research  and  advocacy  in  the  field  of  nutrition  and  health,  he  has  developed  an  expertise  in  nutrition  and  safety  of  micronutrients,  and  translating  discovery  research  into  effective  and  tai-lored nutrition solutions at scale. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the Micronutrient  Forum,  Executive  Committee  of  the  Home  Fortification  Technical  Advisory Group, Executive Board of the Mongolian Health Initiative, and a found-ing member of the Society for Implementation Science in Nutrition, among others.