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There has been a traditional view that divided epidemiology into infectious and chronic diseases. Since we now know that at least 15% of cancers worldwide are caused by infections,1 that infections frequently have a natural history lasting decades and that the same epidemiological methods can be applied to both infectious and non-infectious diseases, this view can be considered purely historical. However, the nature of infectious diseases has implications for the application of epidemiological approaches including the specific example of life course epidemiology. Whilst the definition of this is still debated, it clearly refers to the way in which influences at different stages of life affect and modify risks of disease. Life course epidemiology particularly focuses on disease in adult life and so that is what we discuss here. We are not going to consider childhood or adolescent diseases. In addition it recognizes two types of influence on risk: (1) a simple accumulation of risks and (2) ‘programming’.2 The latter is the way in which an influence modifies a biological system so that it responds differently to subsequent exposures. The epidemiological paradigm for this has been David Barker's hypothesis that intra-uterine nutrition determines physiological responses in the cardiovascular system.3
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Hall et al. (2002) studied this question.
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