In the context of finite global resources for sustained healthy human survival, population explosion, increased environmental pollution, decreased clean air, water, food distribution, diminishing opportunities for human self-esteem, increased median life span, and interconnected causes of acute infectious and chronic diseases, the need to understand the factors leading to human diseases will be necessary for both the long term prevention and for managing shortterm crises heath problems. The transition of our pre-human nutritional requirements for survival to our current unequal and culturally- shaped diet has created a biologically mismatched human dietary experience. While genetic, gender, and developmental stage factors contribute to human diseases, various environmental and culturally-determined factors are now contributing to both acute and chronic diseases. The transition from the hunter-gatherer to an agricultural – dependent human being has brought about a global crisis in human health. Initially, early humans ate seasonally-dependent and calorically-restricted foods, during the day, in a “feast or famine” manner. Today, modern humans eat diets of caloric abundance, at all times of the day, with foods of all seasons and from all parts of the world, that have been processed and which have been contaminated by all kinds of factors. No longer can one view, as distinct, infectious agent –related human acute diseases from chronic diseases. Given the predicted increase in the number of new births before the end of this century, a serious effort must be made to provide a healthy in utero environment for the most vulnerable stage of human development in order to prevent alterations in organ-specific adult stem cell numbers and stem cell –based diseases later in life. This new concept provides a mechanistic explanation for how pre-natal maternal environmental or dietary exposures can now affect diseases later in life (Barker Hypothesis). This concept points to a moral imperative to provide new global strategies for better nutritional education and dietary opportunities for pregnant women in various cultures and economic circumstances.
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