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Biafran Famine

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Handbook of Famine, Starvation, and Nutrient Deprivation

Abstract

Following ethnic, economic, and religious tensions, the republic of Biafra unilaterally declared independence from the rest of Nigeria in 1967. This action triggered the Nigerian civil war in which the inflow of food and supplies to Biafra was blocked. The result was extensive famine, regarded as one of the great nutritional disasters of modern times. During the two-and-a-half years of armed conflict, an estimated one to three million people died, most of them from starvation.

Forty years later, adults in Enugu (the former capital of Biafra) who had been conceived or born during the famine and who survived the famine show health problems with two-to-three times higher prevalence of hypertension, glucose intolerance, and overweight than those born before or after the war. These findings support that undernutrition early in life have significant and adverse impact on human development and physiological design, eventually contributing to an increased risk for noncommunicable diseases in adulthood such as ischemic heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. The long-term effects of undernutrition during pregnancy and in infancy should be considered and receive high priority when setting goals for global health, education, and economic agendas.

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Abbreviations

BMI:

Body mass index

OR:

Odds ratio

SBP:

Systolic blood pressure

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Division of Pediatrics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Mikael Norman

  2. Department of Neonatal Medicine, K78, Karolinska University Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

    Mikael Norman

  3. Department of Medicine, Solna, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Peter Ueda

Authors
  1. Mikael Norman
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  2. Peter Ueda
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Correspondence to Mikael Norman .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Diabetes and Nutritional Sciences Research Division, Faculty of Life Science and Medicine, King’s College London, London, UK

    Victor R. Preedy

  2. School of Life Sciences, University of Westminster, London, UK

    Vinood B. Patel

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Norman, M., Ueda, P. (2019). Biafran Famine. In: Preedy, V., Patel, V. (eds) Handbook of Famine, Starvation, and Nutrient Deprivation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55387-0_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55387-0_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55386-3

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