Table 1.

Human early-life stress studies exploring metabolic outcomes.

Early-life stressor	Participants	Offspring age	Exclusion criteria	Metabolic impact on offspring	Reference
Prenatal: maternal stress, holocaust exposure	137 adults, 74% reported parental holocaust exposure. Remainder considered unexposed controls	Middle-aged men and women	Psychosis, bipolar disorder, substance dependence	↑ Reported use of medications, including psychotropic, antihypertensives, dyslipidemia medication	Flory et al. (67)
			Organic mental disorder	↑ Association with having two or more metabolic syndrome components, e.g., T2DM, hypertension, dyslipidemia or increased BMI
			Dementia; oral corticosteroids
Prenatal: maternal stress, psychosocial	58 offspring, of whom 36 exposed to maternal stress. Remaining 22 considered unexposed controls	Young adults	Pregnancy complication Smoker Acute or chronic health problems	↑ BMI	Entringer et al. (62)
				↑ Very low-density lipoprotein (138%)
				↓ High-density lipoprotein (16%) and low-density lipoprotein (33%)
				OGTT: offspring of mothers whom experienced psychosocial stress compared to control
				↑ Fasting plasma insulin levels (58%)
				↑ Plasma insulin 2-h post-oral glucose load (59%)
				↑ C-peptide 2-h post-oral glucose load (40%)
Prenatal: maternal stress, natural disaster exposure	111 Women pregnant during or conceived within 3 months of the Quebec ice storm	Children, 5.5 years of age		↑ Obesity risk of offspring at 5.5 years old, associated with severity of objective maternal stress	Dancause et al. (68)
				Controlled for SES, pregnancy complications, breastfeeding, smoking, psychological function, and BMI
Prenatal: maternal stress, natural disaster exposure	176 women pregnant during or conceived within 1 month of 1998 Quebec ice storm and their children	Children, mean age 13.5 years		Objective hardship positively correlated with insulin secretion (P < 0.01) and BMI (P < 0.02)	Dancause et al. (69)
Prenatal: maternal stress, bereavement	1,878,246 people, of whom 45,302 were exposed to stress. Remaining considered unexposed controls	Offspring followed for 2–32 years		↑ Risk for T2DM Second trimester identified as the most sensitive	Li et al. (60)
Prenatal and postnatal: maternal stress, famine	741 people born in Amsterdam before, during or after Dutch famine	Middle-aged men and women	Missing birth records	↑ Bodyweight, BMI and waist circumference in women 50 years of age exposed to early gestation famine vs. non-exposed controls	Ravelli et al. (70)
			Preterm birth (<37 weeks)
			Deceased
			Emigrated
Prenatal and postnatal: maternal stress, famine	702 people born in Amsterdam before, during or after Dutch famine	Middle-aged men and women	Missing birth records	OGTT: offspring exposed to famine compared to control	Ravelli et al. (63)
			Preterm birth (<37 weeks)	↑ Fasting proinsulin levels and 2-h glucose concentrations
			Diabetes	More pronounced if famine occurred during late gestation or with later life obesity
			Deceased
			Emigrated
Prenatal and postnatal: maternal perceived stress	152 women surveyed during pregnancy/first year of offspring life, predominantly low-income population	Infants		↑ Risk of infant being overweight (P = 0.020)	Watt et al. (71)
				Correlation with consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (P = 0.004) and with feeding infants sugar-sweetened beverages (P = 0.031)
Prenatal and postnatal: maternal stress, depression	1249 women, depressive symptoms assessed during pregnancy and postpartum	Children 3 years of age	Multiple gestation	Antenatal depression	Ertel et al. (72)
			Issues with English	Smaller body size
			Move prior to delivery	↑ Central adiposity
			Gestational age greater than 22 weeks at first prenatal visit	Postpartum depression
				↑ Overall adiposity
				Independent of SES, BMI, and health condition during pregnancy
Postnatal: childhood stress, death of a parent	135 bariatric surgery candidates	Middle-aged men and women	Substance abuse	↑ Risk of metabolic syndrome following childhood parental loss (P = 0.012)	Alciati et al. (73)
			Severe personality disorder
			Mental retardation
Postnatal: maternal stress (mental, physical, financial family structure) and altered food security	841 Children across 425 low-income households	Children, 3–17 years old	Households above 200% of poverty line	↑ Risk of offspring 3–10 years old being overweight or obese in food secure environments compared to periods of food insecurity (43.7%)	Gundersen et al. (74)
Postnatal: childhood maltreatment	67,853 women in Nurses Health Study II	25–42		Dose–response association between child physical and sexual abuse with adult T2DM. Hazard ratio for diabetes in child exposed to mild, moderate and severe are 1.03, 1.26 and 1.54 respectively	Rich-Edwards et al. (75)
Postnatal: childhood maltreatment	n = 972, born in between April 1972 and March 1973	32 years	Individuals with plasma c-reactive protein >10 mg/l	↑ Inflammation assessed by c-reactive protein	Danese et al. (76)
Postnatal: childhood maltreatment	342 from study of women health across the nation (SWAN)	45.7 year (mean age)		Physical abuse was associated with increased plasma triglyceride and blood pressure	Midei et al. (77)
Postnatal: childhood maltreatment	756 from population based study	Young adult (19–20 years)		↑ BMI in those exposed to neglect during childhood	Lissau and Sorensen (78)
				Odds ratio 9.8 CI 1.35–28.2
Postnatal: childhood maltreatment	9310 of 1958 British birth cohort	45 years		↑ BMI	Thomas et al. (79)
				↑ HbA1C ≥6
				↑ Central obesity