Predisposition to type II diabetes among those residents of Ukraine whose prenatal development coincided with the famine of 1932-1933

It has been shown in a series of works that famine experienced in early ontogenesis may have remote consequences for human health. The present study contains an analysis of the prevalence of type II diabetes (T2DM) among those of Ukraine's residents who were born during the famine of 1932-1933, as well as before and after it. The study results have revealed a significantly higher prevalence of T2DM in individuals whose development in utero was exposed to the period of maximally expressed starvation (1933), compared to that of the subjects unexposed to the famine during their prenatal development phase. These differences were clearly manifested in the individuals born within the first half of the year and were completely absent in the subjects born in the second half, which may serve as evidence of the involvement of seasonal natural factors in the pathological processes. Our possible explanation for the above is that if a person's development happens to be exposed to famine, this may lead to the induction of remote metabolic changes, which have an adaptive importance in early postnatal ontogenesis, but which raise the risk of T2DM developing later in life. © Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2011.