Prenatal famine exposure and cognition at age 59 years.

Background: Despite the perceived importance of early life nutrition for mental development, few studies have related gestational undernutrition to later-life cognitive functioning. We investigated the consequences of gestational exposure to the Dutch famine of 1944-45 for cognitive functioning at the age of 59 years.

Methods: We recruited men and women who were (i) born in birth clinics in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Leiden, between January 1945 and March 1946, whose mothers experienced famine during or immediately preceding pregnancy (n = 354); (ii) born in the same three institutions during 1943 and 1947, whose mothers did not experience famine during this pregnancy (n = 292); or (iii) same-sex siblings of those in the first two categories (n = 311).