Children and adolescents of the 1959-61 Chinese famine: Survivors face increased risk of non-communicable diseases 50 years later, with those exposed in utero or under age 2 at double the risk (IMAGE)

PLOS

Children and adolescents of the 1959-61 Chinese famine: Survivors face increased risk of non-communicable diseases 50 years later, with those exposed in utero or under age 2 at double the risk

Caption

: Risk of non-communicable diseases 50 years later among individuals exposed to the Chinese Famine of 1959-1961 at different life stage. The x-axis indicates the life stage when an individual was exposed to famine. The y-axis indicates the risk of non-communicable diseases, where 1 means average risk, >1 means increased risk, and <1 means below-average risk. The figure shows a consistent pattern in risk of non-communicable diseases in relation to life stage at famine exposure. Individuals exposed to famine in utero and first 1,000 days (0–2 years) had doubled the risk of non-communicable diseases, followed by individuals exposed in pre-school (3–5 years) and primary school (6–9 years) who had a 50% higher risk of non-communicable diseases, and individuals exposed in adolescence (10–18 years) who had an 8% higher risk of non-communicable diseases in later life.

Credit

Cheng et al., 2023, PLOS Global Public Health, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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CC BY

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