Request for Information: Improving our understanding of the role of diet and other factors in the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)
Purpose: | NIH is planning a research project on the role of diet, food environment and related exposures on the developmental origins of health and diseases (DOHaD). This research is a priority, in part, because the United States is experiencing an unprecedented rise in diet-related diseases, particularly obesity and diabetes. In the last 30 years, obesity rates have doubled in adults, tripled in children, and quadrupled in adolescents. There is abundant evidence that the main risk factors for these diseases are set during early development. In addition, preferences for healthy and unhealthy food are similarly being formed or imprinted during fetal development and early life stages. The evidence for this has led to the DOHaD hypothesis, which posits that parental diet, life events/traumas/stress, medications, health and nutritional status, microbiome ecology, and related environmental exposures during development lead to traditional epigenetic alterations. These factors can combine with macro- or micronutrient malnutrition during critical windows of development and are thought to be responsible for future diet-related disease risk. While the evidence for the DOHaD hypothesis is undeniable, there is a need for the deep profiling of a family’s exposome and biology in order to test complex, dynamic and multi-measure hypotheses. Research in this area could illuminate how family nutrition status and feeding practices periconceptionally, during pregnancy, and in early life affect growth and development and eating behaviors and patterns, along with future diet-related disease susceptibility. Objectives that begin to address these questions are found in the 2020-2030 NIH Strategic Plan for Nutrition Research (pp 15-17) and the strategic plans of other NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices. |
Receipt Date: |
Monday, August 15, 2022
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Total Awards: | Various |
Eligibility: | This RFI seeks input from individuals throughout the scientific research community along with relevant key community, private/public partnerships and other interested parties (food bank alliances, restaurant industry, health systems, payors, professional associations, patient groups which should be engaged) regarding any of the following topics:
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Link: | https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-22-157.html |