Gender Specific Effects of Early-Life Events on Adult Lifespan

Abstract

The idea of fetal origins of adult degenerative diseases and early-life programming of late-life health and survival is being actively discussed in the scientific literature. Can this new fascinating concept also be useful to understand (at least partially) the observed sex disparities in adult health and longevity? Are t he long-lasting effects of early-life conditions identical for both sexes, or, on the contrary, they are sex-specific? These questions stimulated us to conduct the present pilo t exploratory study on the gender specificity of late-life health outcomes for early-life effects. In this study we addressed these scientific problems by studying the effects of early-life conditions on adult lifespan of men and women separately, using the methodology of historical prospective study of extinct birth cohorts