Despite recent progress in the field, treatment options for overweight and obesity in adults remain of limited efficacy. Prevention of obesity in adulthood is also largely unsuccessful, partially due to under-consideration of important determinants of excessive body weight gain at earlier developmental windows. This impedes effective reduction of the prevalence of obesity and its metabolic complications. eprObes departs from the concept that susceptibility to adult obesity is rooted on multiple determinants, either endogenous or environmental, occurring at earlier developmental periods, from periconception to puberty, and is influenced by psycho-social determinants and disorders of feeding behavior occurring mainly at adolescence. While individual contribution of some of these developmental determinants had been fragmentarily defined by different clinical or experimental studies, eprObes will address novel contributing factors, as endometrial signals, changes in blood-brain barrier permeability and epigenetic regulatory mechanisms, and, more importantly, will provide a comprehensive and integral assessment of these determinants, by combining clinical cohort studies, analyzing different windows of development, and preclinical studies in suitable animal models, that will permit a deeper insight into the mechanisms and consequences of these early determinants. Recognition of the full spectrum of such factors will put eprObes in optimal position to define effective preventive strategies, targeting these factors, and tailor early interventions, especially in subsets of subjects with higher risk of developing obesity and its complications.
