Autoimmune disorders (AID) are a group of debilitating non-communicable chronic diseases (NCDs)
affecting the immune system’s capacity to differentiate between foreign and autoantigens. This set of
pathologies has experienced a fast-tracked increase in incidence over the last decades. Other types of
NCDs, especially the metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes have been shown to
have their origins in early life, early life nutrition being a key predictor of their occurrence. This
observation has opened an entirely new field of research which, today, is known as Developmental
Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD). Literature on AID in adulthood is abundant, however, aside
from type 1 diabetes (T1D), research on AID in the context of DOHaD remains relatively scarce. Due to
the prevalence of AID in modern society and the public health challenge it represents in numerous
countries, this review will 1) present the state of the literature to explore mechanisms that link perinatal
nutrition to the development of autoimmunity in later life, and 2) build hypotheses for the purpose of
future research in the domain of nutritional programming of AID. Its purpose is to provide an oversight
primarily for an audience of early-career researchers and practitioners who have an interest in the
subject and who might find it useful to develop and test hypotheses of their own. It should also be
clarified that this review does not test the cited hypotheses. Rather, the purpose of this review is to
attempt to answer the following question: Given the state of the literature on the development of the
immune system, as well as on pre-and post-natal nutrition, what can be said to be the nutritional
determinants in the developmental programming of autoimmune disorders (AID)?