AUTHOR=Prentice Sarah 

TITLE=They Are What You Eat: Can Nutritional Factors during Gestation and Early Infancy Modulate the Neonatal Immune Response?

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Immunology

VOLUME=8

YEAR=2017

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/immunology/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2017.01641

DOI=10.3389/fimmu.2017.01641

ISSN=1664-3224

ABSTRACT=<p>The ontogeny of the human immune system is sensitive to nutrition even in the very early embryo, with both deficiency and excess of macro- and micronutrients being potentially detrimental. Neonates are particularly vulnerable to infectious disease due to the immaturity of the immune system and modulation of nutritional immunity may play a role in this sensitivity. This review examines whether nutrition around the time of conception, throughout pregnancy, and in early neonatal life may impact on the developing infant immune system.</p>