Five years of collaborative European research on early nutrition programming

Differences in nutritional experience during sensitive periods in early life, both before and after birth, can programme a person’s future development, metabolism and health. Better scientific understanding of Early Nutrition Programming holds enormous potential for implementing preventive strategies to enhance the long-term health, well-being and performance of people. This could not only reduce costs of health care and social services, but could as well enhance wealth of societies. The Early Nutrition Programming Project brings together a multi-disciplinary team of international scientists and leaders in key areas of the early nutrition programming field from 40 major research centres across 16 European countries. The project with a total budget of 16.5 million Euros is funded by the EC under the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Technical Development and is co-ordinated by the Children’s Hospital at Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. The integrated programme of work combines experimental studies in humans, prospective observational studies and mechanistic animal work including physiological studies and cell culture models, with molecular biology techniques. The project started in 2005 and will run to October 2010. After the end of the project, the Early Nutrition Academy (www.early-nutrition.org) will continue to serve as a platform for exchange of information, scientific collaboration and training activities in the area of programming. This presentation will highlight some of the scientific results and achievements and the efforts of the Early Nutrition Programming Project in respect to training and dissemination.