Figure 2.

Schematic illustration of links between maternal insults, fetal programming, and cardiovascular disease of developmental origins. A wide range of early-life environmental factors can influence fetal programming, include maternal undernutrition/overnutrition, maternal smoking, maternal illness, and exposure to medication or environmental toxins. During organogenesis, these maternal insults induce morphological and functional changes in different organ systems, such as liver, pancreas, heart, vessels, brain, kidney, and endothelium. Consequently, cardiovascular programming causes a cluster of phenotypes such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, dyslipidemia, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular morbidity, all risks factor for cardiovascular disease.