Abstract
This paper highlights evidence that the development of cardiovascular disease risk is affected by prenatal nutrition as well as feeding mode and diet during infancy. Although the strong evidence for long-term effects of prenatal nutrition comes from experimental animal studies, there is a growing body of epidermiologic studies that relate size at birth to adult blood pressure, insulin resistance, and other cardiovascular disease risk factors. Studies of the long-term effects of breast-feeding and specific components of the infant diet are inconclusive, largely because of methodological limitations