Subsequent research has demonstrated that people who grew poorly before birth or as infants are at risk not only for heart disease but also for other adult chronic diseases including hypertension, type 2 diabetes, obesity, asthma, and osteoporosis. Poor growth in early life has also been associated with compromised cognitive function. It is now believed, based on animal and human data that prenatal stressors in the form of nutrition, high levels of stress hormone (cortisol), and hypoxia lead to structural and epigenetic changes that impart vulnerability for disease in later life. The developmental response to these stressors is known as "programming," or the developmental origins of adult diseases.