Bone Health: Understanding how embryonic nutrients, environmental chemicals and nutritional epigenetics may alter lifelong bone health from conception throughout the lifespan

A large share of the world's population lives with one or more chronic diseases; and seventy-fi ve percent of the total US health care budget in recent years (about $1.5 trillion dollars/year) is spent on chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, and asthma. Globally, chronic diseases are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality and are extremely burdensome for many countries. Yet, many, if not most, of these chronic diseases are preventable through modifi cations in lifestyle, diet, exercise, and controlling certain dietary and environmental exposures.