Le by “magic bullets” on the flawed premise of organ-specificWahlqvist et al.Pageresponses, receptors, and mechanisms; (2) public health generates “evidence-based” policydriving population data and one-size-fits-all timid, ineffective dictates, applicable at their worst to less than 51 of a population; and (3) the promise of individualized precision medicine is increasingly challenged by cellular pluripotency, plasticity, and epigenetics, evident in the failures of current drug combinations, multi-modal therapies and staged approaches, the multitude of redundant, evolutionarily conserved mechanisms that defend maintenance of life-sustaining energy stores defies univariate solutions. Like few other global epidemics threatening quality-adjusted life years, the chronic inflammatory, insulin-resistant, dysmetabolic overnutrition syndrome (commonly termed “obesity”) has resisted two centuries of attempts to curb its progress, by focusing on food and body size rather than metabolism. The clear and present dangers of maternal death and illness, fetal loss, malformations, chronic disease, lifelong suffering, and Valsartan/sacubitril web premature demise associated with obesity are unremitting in the face of GW9662 molecular weight compelling evidence and substantial progress elucidating mechanisms from mitochondrial to societal. In this context, the conference “Early-Life Influences on Obesity: From Pre-Conception to Adolescence,” held on September 26, 2014 at the New York Academy of Sciences, was conceived to examine obesity from an ontological as well as an ecologic perspective, hoping to identify critical nodes amenable to “small miracles”1 resulting in beneficial “creeping normalcy” from grassroots to government, to find realistic solutions for a conflicted field of real and perceived stakeholders in education, transportation, business, and industry. Successful examples of cross-sectorial collaborations exist, as do barriers to scaling and replicating such initiatives. Ultimately, these are questions of measurement, health equity, sustainability, and leadership. Thus, the opening speaker, Mark L. Wahlqvist, framed the conflict between individuals’ health and obesifying ecosystems he had termed “econutritional,” while the final speaker, Nico Rizzo, addressed adolescent physical fitness, a determinant of chronic cardiometabolic diseases of later life, as well as transgenerational transmission of the dysmetabolic diathesis of diabesity. Presentations covered the diverse areas of unintended pregnancies, sperm RNA, patrilineal transmission of disease, dysbiosis in the human microbiome, gestational exercise and other intrauterine influences, breast feeding, appetitive behavior, metabolic mechanisms of physical activity, and adolescent exercise. Readers should view the report from this one-day conference as a “tasting menu” where, however, each item is a meal in itself, each topic sufficiently rich to generate multi-day annual conferences, and each speaker is a chef. The goal was to bring together experts from different domains who do not usually participate in the same meetings or compete for the same grants, to generate innovative strategies for solving a seemingly intractable evolutionary problem (Fig. 1). Its scope, however, precludes attempts at being comprehensive.Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAnn N Y Acad Sci. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 July 01.Wahlqvist et al.PagePreconception and generational effects of nutritionWeight management i.Le by “magic bullets” on the flawed premise of organ-specificWahlqvist et al.Pageresponses, receptors, and mechanisms; (2) public health generates “evidence-based” policydriving population data and one-size-fits-all timid, ineffective dictates, applicable at their worst to less than 51 of a population; and (3) the promise of individualized precision medicine is increasingly challenged by cellular pluripotency, plasticity, and epigenetics, evident in the failures of current drug combinations, multi-modal therapies and staged approaches, the multitude of redundant, evolutionarily conserved mechanisms that defend maintenance of life-sustaining energy stores defies univariate solutions. Like few other global epidemics threatening quality-adjusted life years, the chronic inflammatory, insulin-resistant, dysmetabolic overnutrition syndrome (commonly termed “obesity”) has resisted two centuries of attempts to curb its progress, by focusing on food and body size rather than metabolism. The clear and present dangers of maternal death and illness, fetal loss, malformations, chronic disease, lifelong suffering, and premature demise associated with obesity are unremitting in the face of compelling evidence and substantial progress elucidating mechanisms from mitochondrial to societal. In this context, the conference “Early-Life Influences on Obesity: From Pre-Conception to Adolescence,” held on September 26, 2014 at the New York Academy of Sciences, was conceived to examine obesity from an ontological as well as an ecologic perspective, hoping to identify critical nodes amenable to “small miracles”1 resulting in beneficial “creeping normalcy” from grassroots to government, to find realistic solutions for a conflicted field of real and perceived stakeholders in education, transportation, business, and industry. Successful examples of cross-sectorial collaborations exist, as do barriers to scaling and replicating such initiatives. Ultimately, these are questions of measurement, health equity, sustainability, and leadership. Thus, the opening speaker, Mark L. Wahlqvist, framed the conflict between individuals’ health and obesifying ecosystems he had termed “econutritional,” while the final speaker, Nico Rizzo, addressed adolescent physical fitness, a determinant of chronic cardiometabolic diseases of later life, as well as transgenerational transmission of the dysmetabolic diathesis of diabesity. Presentations covered the diverse areas of unintended pregnancies, sperm RNA, patrilineal transmission of disease, dysbiosis in the human microbiome, gestational exercise and other intrauterine influences, breast feeding, appetitive behavior, metabolic mechanisms of physical activity, and adolescent exercise. Readers should view the report from this one-day conference as a “tasting menu” where, however, each item is a meal in itself, each topic sufficiently rich to generate multi-day annual conferences, and each speaker is a chef. The goal was to bring together experts from different domains who do not usually participate in the same meetings or compete for the same grants, to generate innovative strategies for solving a seemingly intractable evolutionary problem (Fig. 1). Its scope, however, precludes attempts at being comprehensive.Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAnn N Y Acad Sci. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 July 01.Wahlqvist et al.PagePreconception and generational effects of nutritionWeight management i.
