ABSTRACT
Recently there has been a shift in the focus of investigations of the causes of chronic disease from health-related behaviours and risk factors acting during adulthood to experiences occurring during early life: in childhood, infancy and during intra-uterine development. The work of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Environmental Epidemiology Unit in Southampton, under the direction of Professor David Barker, has been largely instrumental in this. The unit’s work has occasioned an editorial in the British Medical Journal claiming that ‘the “early life experience” paradigm is a strong candidate’ for the replacement of the lifestyle paradigm’ of chronic disease aetiology. 1
