Dr John Nichols
Visiting Research Fellow, Surrey University
About this event
- Date and time Wed 8 Jun 2022 from 8:15am to 6:00pm
- Location Royal Society of Medicine
- Organised by Food and Health, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Maternity and the Newborn Forum
This event will now take place as a webinar. To attend the webinar please click here.
This event seeks to recognise that the most profound effect on lifetime health is the nutrition and lifestyle of the parents in the weeks before conception and raise awareness of the acute need for support in deprived areas.
Participants will understand the scale of mental and physical ill-health that springs from lack of preconception education and care, particularly in nutrition, and the knowledge needed to be applied for family, social, and economic benefit that can contribute to peace, security and equality.
The insights and knowledge will be vital to professional practice and teaching in health and education as well as for political understanding towards generating a healthy population.
After this session, preconception care, successful so far against neural tube disorders will be recognised as the powerful means to reduce a wider range of hugely more prevalent disorders, including congenital heart disorders, obesity, diabetes as well as brain disorders, including autism and special educational needs. Speakers will also highlight that the success of preconception care against infertility as well as congenital defects can reduce the requirement for artificial reproductive technology with its raised risks, as well as increase its rate of success.
Participants will be able to:
- Appreciate how preconception nutrition has succeeded in randomized controlled trials against the neural tube, cardiovascular, and other defects
- See cutting-edge findings of preconception maternal nutrients on specific regions of the brain
- Comprehend the huge prevalences and economic costs of developmental physical and mental disorders
- Gain preconception health knowledge for medical, health, and teaching professions, politics and government
- Understand why children need educating in conception while they have time to learn and to optimise their nutrition and health
A uniquely detailed presentation of the radical way to arrest the escalation of mental disorders and falling IQ reducing the current prevalence of congenital and non-communicable disorders will be discussed.
The only way to attain genetic and epigenetic human potential in conditions as varied as today’s is by attending well before conception to parental lifestyle, particularly nutrition while reviewing the transgenerational effects of changing conditions on our evolutionary path. Now more than ever, in the face of viral pandemics and climate change, generating robust human health with minimal inequities is paramount.
A CPD certificate with CPD credit will be issued to those joining the webinar live as well as those who watch the recording afterwards. Certificates will be issued 7 days after the webinar to those who watch it live and after 30 days for those that watch the recording.
Key speakers
Professor Mark Hanson
Professor of Cardiovascular Science, Southampton University
Professor Michael Crawford
Director, Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition
Professor Sumantra Ray
Nutritionist, Global Centre for Nutrition and Health
Agenda
View the programme
Registration, tea and coffee
Welcome and introduction
Dr Leigh Gibson, President, Food and Health Section, Royal Society of Medicine and Reader in Biopsychology, University of Roehampton
Session one
Chaired by: Dr Tatiana Christides, Lecturer, University of Leicester
Preconception in perspective: Personal, familial, social and economic
Reverend Simon House, Author, Mother and Child Foundation
Maternal lipid nutrition preconception is a critical determinant for neurodevelopment
Professor Michael Crawford, Director, Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition
Panel discussion
Tea and coffee break
Dietary change outpacing evolution – and medicine?
Dr John Nichols, Visiting Research Fellow, Surrey University
Promoting preconception health – challenges and opportunities
Professor Mark Hanson, Professor of Cardiovascular Science, Southampton University
Panel discussion
Lunch
Session two
Chaired by: Dr John Nichols
Implications for preterm neonatal health of low levels of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and high lipid peroxidation in donor human milk in the United Kingdom
Dr Simon Dyall, Senior Lecturer, University of Roehampton
Nutrition around conception, long-term outcomes and implication for policy
Dr Saskia Osendarp, Professor of Nutrition and Health, Wageningen University
Panel discussion
Tea and coffee break
Underprivileged, marginalised and neglected populations
Professor Sumantra Ray, Nutritionist, Global Centre for Nutrition and Health
Engaging with preconception health in the UK
Professor Judith Stephenson, Margaret Pyke Professor of Sexual and Reproductive Health, University College London
Panel discussion
Closing remarks
Dr Leigh Gibson
Close of meeting
Drinks reception
Location
Royal Society of Medicine, 1 Wimpole St, Marylebone, London, W1G 0AE, United Kingdom
Disclaimer: All views expressed in this webinar are of the speakers themselves and not of the RSM nor the speaker's organisations.
Registration for this event will close on 7 June 2022 at 1am. Late registrations will not be accepted.
