Biological Memories of Ancestral Nutrition: Evolutionary and anthropological perspectives

Dr. Christopher Kuzawa (Professor of Anthropology; Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University)

Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
Colloquium Series Spring 2015

Many biological systems exhibit brief periods of developmental sensitivity during fetal life and infancy, when offspring are dependent on maternal nutrients and other cues transferred across the placenta or via milk. These periods of height- ened developmental plasticity link adult biological function and health to the experiences and diets of mothers and other recent ancestors. In this talk Professor Kuzawa will explore examples from his long-term studies in the Philippines that illustrate the intergenerational effects of a mother’s diet and nutritional history on the growth and health of her offspring. It is proposed that maternal signals convey information about long-term, rather than recent and transient, environmental conditions, and that such integrative intergenerational cues have evolved to provide a best guess of average conditions likely to be experienced over a human lifetime.