A baby’s diet in the first months of life can set the stage for heart attacks and strokes decades later. Researchers at the MRC Childhood Nutrition Centre have spent 25 years running clinical trials that randomly assigned infants to different early diets, then tracked them into adulthood. They now want to pin down exactly how early nutrition alters blood pressure, cholesterol, body fat, and diabetes risk—the accepted precursors to heart disease—and use ultrasound to detect the very first signs of artery damage. This matters because heart disease remains Britain’s biggest killer and health-care burden, yet most prevention efforts focus on adults, long after the damage has begun. The gap is knowledge: we do not know which early nutritional choices most effectively lower later risk. If this research succeeds, it could reshape public health guidance for infant feeding and weaning, giving parents and clinicians evidence-based interventions to reduce obesity, heart attacks, and strokes in the next generation. The work is applied and directly aimed at policy—not fundamental science—so the payoff is a practical toolkit for early-life prevention.
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Disease of blood vessels (‘atherosclerosis’) that leads to heart attacks and strokes is the main cause of death and disability, the major consumer of health care resources and the most important health priority in Britain and indeed the Western World. Whilst heart attacks usually occur in adults, there is now strong evidence that the diet of babies and children has a major impact on the early processes that lead to blood vessel damage and, ultimately, heart disease later in life. During the past 25 years we have been conducting unique and ethical clinical trials where subjects have been randomly assigned to different early diets to test for the long-term consequences of early nutrition. Some of these trial populations have been followed into adulthood. These, together with our new trials, put us in a strong position to test the impact of early nutrition on later cardiovascular health. Our ultimate purpose is to underpin public health practices in this critical area. We plan to study accepted risk factors for heart disease (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fatness and tendency to diabetes); and the first stages of atherosclerotic disease, using ultrasound techniques. We will also investigate the factors later in childhood (such as obesity) that can lead to atherosclerosis. The planned research will be conducted by Dr Atul Singhal and Professor Alan Lucas at the MRC Childhood Nutrition Centre, at the Institute of Child Health, London, in collaboration with a network of centres throughout Britain. Our work will help our understanding of the origins of atherosclerosis and will provide us with the knowledge to design early nutritional practices and interventions that could help reduce obesity, heart attacks and strokes in adults.
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