Mental Energy: Defining the Science

May 2006: (II)S1-S11This susceptibility is increasingly related to the conjunction of fetal malnutrition and later inappropriate diets.The alarming escalation in the health burden suggests that two-thirds of the world's population is super-sensitive to weight gain, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and perhaps many cancers.New evidence on epigenetics and the structural changes in the fetus in response to inappropriate maternal diets provides mechanisms to explain this.Unfortunately, a vicious intergenerational cycle of maternal and fetal epigenetic change seems to herald markedly increased future burdens of disease.The nutrition field is therefore challenged not only in terms of science, but also in new dimensions of public health of immense economic significance.