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PubMed1994

Panglobal distribution of a single clonal lineage of the Irish potato famine fungus.

More than 300 isolates of the Irish potato famine fungus, Phytophthora infestans, collected in 20 countries on five continents, were analyzed for genetic variation at the mating type and two allozyme loci. A subset of more than 200 isolates was also analyzed for DNA "fingerprint" variation. A surprising result was that a single clonal lineage dominated most populations worldwide. All of the variation within this lineage appeared to have arisen by mitotic recombination or by mutation. In addition to the most common clonal lineage, a number of different, but apparently closely related, lineages occurred in the United States and Canada. The low levels of gene diversity in the derived populations compared to the presumed ancestral population in central Mexico indicate that P. infestans went through extreme genetic bottlenecks during its dispersal. The genetic data are consistent with the hypothesis that the initial migration of P. infestans in the 1840s was from Mexico to the United States and that only a single genetic individual was transported to Europe and subsequently to the rest of the world. If this hypothesis is correct, then the Irish potato famine was caused by a single clonal genotype of P. infestans.

DNA Fingerprinting↗
PubMed1998

Famine, disease, and mortality patterns in the parish of Borshevka, Russia, 1830-1912.

Scholars have projected a dismal image of nineteenth-century, rural Russia as a society repeatedly punctuated by crop failures, famine, starvation, and epidemics of famine-related diseases. But there has been no rigorous attempt, using appropriate methods, to assess the nature of demographic crises in Russia and their contribution to overall mortality and population growth. The pattern of mortality evident in the parish under examination is distinguished by an extremely high incidence of infant, diarrhoeal diseases and childhood, infectious diseases. This unfavourable disease environment and resulting high rates of infant and early childhood mortality were more closely related to fertility levels, household size, housing conditions, and weaning practices than to annual or seasonal food availablity and the nutritional status of the population. In a disease-driven society, the susceptibility to infection and the force of infection can, to a considerable extent, be determined by demographic factors, familial norms, and climatic constraints.

Cause of Death↗
PubMedDate not supplied

The effect of wartime conditions and the 1944-45 'Dutch famine' on recalled menarcheal age in participants of the DOM breast cancer screening project.

In a retrospective cohort study on 21,067 women who participated in the DOM project, a breast cancer screening programme, age at menarche was studied in relation to the 'Dutch Famine' at the end of the Second World War. Menarche showed a delay during the entire war period, disrupting a secular trend pattern in both urban and rural areas. This delay could be explained by circumstances of general dearth and food rationing. The data did not show a clear effect of famine exposure over and above effects related to the entire war period. Where age at menarche is a risk factor for breast cancer, effects due to a modest limitation of caloric intake such as accomplished by the food rationing may be more relevant as to its public health impact on cancer risk reduction than any additional effects due to outright starvation as occurred during the 'hungerwinter'.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Regional, temporal, and seasonal variations in births and deaths: the effects of famines.

A knowledge of the seasonal variation in births and deaths during normal years is important for analyses of the effects of wars, famines, epidemics or similar privations on these two variables. In studies of seasonality, multiple trigonometric regression models are more flexible than the simple sine curve. The seasonal variation in mortality in Iceland, 1856-1990, shows a strong secular decrease, and a connection between this and the epidemiological transition is considered. As a consequence of the severe famine in Finland in 1867-68, the mortality for the whole year 1868 was almost four times as high as during normal years, and the seasonality of the mortality was even more accentuated. The birth rate in Finland during 1868 was about 70 percent of that during normal years and showed an aberrant seasonality, with a strong trough from October 1868 to February 1869 (fewer conceptions between January and May 1868, when the food shortage was severe).

Birth Rate↗
PubMed1978

Diet and cerebral malaria: the effect of famine and refeeding.

In an outbreak of Plasmodium falciparum malaria following refeeding after famine cerebral malaria was restricted to children eating grain. Nomad children consuming a predominantly milk diet were free of this complication despite an equivalent incidence of uncomplicated malaria. Freedom of nomads from cerebral complications may be due to inhibition by the milk diet of rapid division of the parasite combined with delayed recovery after famine of T cell function.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Physicians and famine in Japan: Takano Chōei in 1830s.

Takano Chōei (1804-50) was a rangakusha: a scholar of Dutch learning, and a physician of Western medicine. Although he was one of the foremost scholars in his field, his career was cut off in its prime when he became the victim of an intrigue in 1839. As a result, much of his early work has been overshadowed by the political events that followed. This article takes a different approach to the writing of Chōei's history by presenting an example of his work as a physician in the period before his arrest. It examines the responses of Chōei and his colleagues to the famine and pestilence which ravaged the population during the Tempō Famine of the 1830s. The study is based on two short articles: one concerns the precautions people should take against epidemic disease, while the other deals with hardy, rapidly maturing crops thought helpful in warding off starvation. The focus of this article is on the way knowledge from Western sources was 'received'; that is, how it was actively assimilated and transformed, through a process of cultural exchange.

Communicable Disease Control↗
PubMed1997

Sex differences in prevalence of congenital neural defects after periconceptional famine exposure.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the sex distribution of deaths from spina bifida in birth cohorts exposed and unexposed to severe periconceptional famine. For this purpose, we compared the risk of deaths from spina bifida between birth cohorts exposed and unexposed to the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944-1946. In males, the relative risk of death from spina bifida was 2.62 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.14-6.01]. In females, the relative risk for spina bifida was 0.59 (95% CI = 0.14-2.37). The sex ratio (male:female) for deaths from spina bifida in the exposed birth cohort was 2.74; a female predominance was not seen in any other birth cohort. Deaths from anencephaly and other central nervous system disorders did not exhibit this male predominance in the exposed birth cohort. These findings indicate that severe periconceptional nutrient deficiency may have a greater effect on the occurrence of spina bifida in males vs females. Other potential explanations include sex-specific effects of prenatal famine on prenatal or postnatal survival rates of cases.

Anencephaly↗
PubMed1993

The Dutch famine birth cohort study: design, validation of exposure, and selected characteristics of subjects after 43 years follow-up.

A historical birth cohort study of 1116 women born between August 1 1944 and April 15 1946 in the Wilhelmina Gasthuis hospital in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, was set up to study the short- and long-term effects of a limited period of extreme nutritional deprivation in the winter of 1944-1945 in the Western Netherlands. The degree of food deprivation is evidenced by a dramatic decline in third trimester pregnancy weight gain and infant birthweight. All women were traced and 84% (683/813) of survivors presently resident in the Netherlands agreed to be interviewed in their homes. There were no differences in characteristics at birth between interviewed and uninterviewed survivors. The women who were interviewed had 1299 offspring and were able to recall birthweight of all of them. Additional birthweight information from hospital and well-baby clinic (WBC) records is available for about half of the offspring. Since the famine was imposed on the entire population of a well-defined area, whose opportunities to obtain food elsewhere were severely restricted, and the women from this hospital cohort were predominantly lower middle class, the relationship between fetal nutrition and subsequent health outcomes in this cohort is not likely to be confounded by unmeasured attributes related to social class. In addition, selective losses to follow-up could be excluded, which makes the Dutch famine birth cohort a valuable resource for future studies in perinatal epidemiology.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Malnutrition and mortality during recent famines in Ethiopia: implications for food aid and rehabilitation.

The 1972-73 and 1984-85 famines varied significantly among different populations within famine areas at the regional, community and household levels. Political and social factors were crucial in this pattern. Evidence from both pastoral and farming areas indicates that the development of community-based resources may be less disruptive socially and economically and result in less morbidity and mortality than dependence on relief shelters. Areas needing further study are identified.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Gestational programming: population survival effects of drought and famine during pregnancy.

The process whereby a stimulus or stress at a critical or sensitive period of development has long-term effects is termed "programming." Studies in humans and animals convincingly demonstrate that environmental perturbations in utero may permanently change organ structure and metabolism and/or alter homeostatic regulatory mechanisms among the offspring. These programmed changes may be the origins of adult diseases, including cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. Throughout evolution and development, humans and animals have been exposed to two common environmental stresses, drought and famine. Notably, drought-induced water deprivation is associated with dehydration anorexia and thus a concomitant potential nutrient stress. Our laboratory has performed studies among pregnant rat and sheep in which we simulate drought conditions via maternal dehydration and famine conditions via nutrient restriction. Maternal dehydration results in low-birth-weight offspring, which demonstrate gender-specific plasma hypernatremia and hypertonicity and arterial hypertension. Gestational nutrient restriction also resulted in low-birth-weight offspring. If permitted rapid catch-up growth by nutrient availability, these offspring demonstrate evidence of increased body weight and body fat, and leptin resistance as adults. Conversely, if the catch-up growth is delayed by nutrition restriction, the offspring exhibit normal body weight, body fat, and plasma leptin levels as adults. These studies indicate that osmoregulatory and cardiovascular homeostasis and phenotypic predisposition to obesity may be programmed in utero. Importantly, these results suggest that programming effects may be either potentiated or prevented by interventions during the neonatal period.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Famine in the Spanish civil war and mortality from coronary heart disease: a perspective from Barker's hypothesis].

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether the famine experienced during the Spanish civil war and immediate postwar period influenced mortality from coronary heart disease (CHD) in persons born in this period, following the lines of Barker's hypothesis on fetal programming of chronic diseases in adult life. METHODS: Using CHD mortality data by age and sex for 1990-2002, annual and age-adjusted rates were calculated by the direct method. Poisson regressions were used to estimate period, age and cohort effects by year of birth (1918-1957). RESULTS: During the study period, CHD mortality fell by a yearly average of -2.3% in both sexes and in all ages yearly. This trend was influenced by both cohort and period effects (p<0.001); an increased risk was observed for both sexes and in all ages in the deaths corresponding to persons born during the war and postwar years when the famine was most intense (1937, 1940, 1943 and 1945). CONCLUSIONS: The results obtained by studying yearly CHD mortality are compatible with those expected by Barker's hypothesis of the effect of nutritional stress during pregnancy. In addition to its human, economic and political costs, the Spanish civil war could also have had negative consequences for the health of persons born in this period.

Aged↗
PubMed2000

Prenatal exposure to famine and brain morphology in schizophrenia.

OBJECTIVE: The authors assessed the effects of nutritional deficiency during the first trimester of pregnancy on brain morphology in patients with schizophrenia. METHOD: Nine schizophrenic patients and nine healthy comparison subjects exposed during the first trimester of gestation to the Dutch Hunger Winter were evaluated with magnetic resonance brain imaging, as were nine schizophrenic patients and nine healthy subjects who were not prenatally exposed to the famine. RESULTS: Prenatal famine exposure in patients with schizophrenia was associated with decreased intracranial volume. Prenatal Hunger Winter exposure alone was related to an increase in brain abnormalities, predominantly white matter hyperintensities. CONCLUSIONS: Nutritional deficiency during the first trimester of gestation resulted in an increase in clinical brain abnormalities and was associated with aberrant early brain development in patients with schizophrenia. Stunted brain development secondary to factors that affect brain growth during the first trimester of gestation may thus be a potential risk factor for developing schizophrenia.

Brain↗
PubMed2003

Explaining feast or famine in randomized field trials. Medical science and criminology compared.

A feast of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) in medical science and comparative famine in criminology can be explained in terms of cultural and structural factors. Of central importance is the context in which the evaluation of interventions is done and the difference in status of situational research in the two disciplines. Evaluation of medical interventions has traditionally been led by practitioner (clinical) academics. This is not the case in criminal justice, where theory has had higher status than intervention research. Medical science has advanced in, or closely associated with, university teaching hospitals, but links between criminology and criminal justice services are far more tenuous. The late development of situational crime prevention seems extraordinary from a medical perspective, as does the absence of university police schools in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. These structural and cultural factors explain concentration of expectation, resource, and RCT productivity in medical science. The Campbell Collaboration and the Academy of Experimental Criminology are forces which are reducing this polarization of feast and famine in RCTs. But unless scientific criminology is embedded in university schools which are responsible for the education and training of law, probation, and police practitioners, convergence in terms of RCTs and implementation of findings in practice seems unlikely.

Criminology↗
PubMed1997

"An awful visitation of providence": the Irish Famine of 1845-49.

This essay examines the condition of Ireland before, during and after the famine which began in 1845 when the potato crop began to fail. A series of topics is presented: the quality of life, families, government aid, philanthropy, population changes, literacy, emigration, and public policy. The essay draws on the author's research quantifying the quality of life in Ireland, and on research analysing the heights of a sample of Irish army recruits in the famine era.

History, 19th Century↗
PubMed1996

Population increase policy after the 1783 great famine in northeastern Tokugawa Japan.

During the Tokugawa Period, northeastern Japan has been thought one of the poorest region in the country for the population had been decreasing for over 100 years as early as the 18th century. In particular, farmers had been severely affected by several famines, especially in 1783. I have reevaluated the social and economic situation after 1783 by investigating the details of the in-migration plan. The in-migration plan in the study area was not a kind of welfare policy to relieve farmers affected by the 1783 great famine, but evidence shows the beginning of a proto-industrialization. The demand for female labor to produce hemp cloths increased rapidly from the beginning of the 19th century. Women who were good at weaving were invited as brides.

Emigration and Immigration↗
PubMed1999

The impact of war, famine, and economic decline on marital fertility in Ethiopia.

We examine recent fertility trends in Ethiopia for evidence of short- and long-term responses to famine, political events, and economic decline. We use retrospective data on children ever born from the 1990 National Family and Fertility Survey to estimate trends in annual marital conception probabilities, controlling for women's demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The results of our analysis provide evidence of significant short-term declines in conception probabilities during years of famine and major political and economic upheaval. In the longer term, marital fertility in both urban and rural areas declined in the 1980s after increasing moderately in the 1970s.

Birth Rate↗
PubMed2000

[Link between prenatal exposure to the "Winter of Famine" and long-term medical consequences].

The 'foetal origins' hypothesis (Barker hypothesis) proposes that undernutrition of the foetus during critical periods of development increases the risk of coronary heart disease in later life. The Dutch famine caused by the second World War in the winter of 1944--although a historical disaster--provides a unique opportunity to study effects of undernutrition during gestation in humans. The health of people born around the time of the Dutch famine, in the Wilhelmina Gasthuis in Amsterdam, of whom detailed birth records exist, was assessed. There were indications that chronic diseases in later life are associated with prenatal undernutrition. The associations with undernutrition, however, depend upon the time of occurrence during gestation. Our findings are compatible with the conclusion that maternal malnutrition during gestation may permanently affect adult health without affecting the size of the baby at birth. This may imply that adaptations that enable the foetus to continue to grow may have adverse consequences for health in later life.

Adult↗
PubMed2001

Mortality during a famine--Gode district, Ethiopia, July 2000.

Recurrent famine has been a major cause of mortality in the Horn of Africa. In Ethiopia, three consecutive years of drought led to widespread loss of livestock, population displacement, and malnutrition, placing an estimated 10 million persons at risk for starvation in 2000. A large proportion of the population of the Gode district in Somali region was displaced in a search for food and food aid (CDC, unpublished data, 2000). From April through July 2000, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) opened feeding centers in the Gode district. Because no vital statistics or public health surveillance system existed in the district, and no representative mortality or morbidity data were available, during July 2000, CDC, in collaboration with Save the Children U.S., the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance of the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), conducted a mortality survey. This report summarizes the results of this survey, which found persistently high levels of mortality, with measles representing an important cause of mortality in children aged <5 years and 5-14 years. Mass measles vaccination with vitamin A distribution is an important intervention during the acute phase of famines in sub-Saharan Africa.

Adult↗