A low-sugar diet in utero and in the first two years of life can significantly reduce the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood, a new study has found, providing compelling new evidence of the effects of sugar consumption on children. first years of life on health.
Published in ScienceThe study finds that children who experienced sugar restrictions during the first 1000 days after conception had up to a 35% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes and up to a 20% lower risk of hypertension in adulthood. The mother’s low sugar intake before birth was enough to reduce the risks, but continued sugar restriction after birth increased the benefits.
Taking advantage of an unintended “natural experiment” from World War II, researchers from USC’s Dornsife Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences, McGill University in Montreal, and the University of California, Berkeley, examined how wartime sugar rationing influenced in the long term. long-term health outcomes.
The United Kingdom introduced limits on sugar distribution in 1942 as part of its wartime food rationing program. Rationing ended in September 1953.
The researchers used contemporary data from the UK Biobank, a database of medical records and genetic, lifestyle and other disease risk factors, to study the effect of such early-life sugar restrictions on Health outcomes of adults conceived in the UK just before and after the end of wartime sugar rationing.
“Studying the long-term effects of added sugar on health is challenging,” says the study’s corresponding author, Tadeja Gracner, senior economist at USC’s Dornsife Center for Economic and Social Research. “It is difficult to find situations where people are randomly exposed to different nutritional environments early in life and follow them for 50 to 60 years. The end of rationing provided us with a novel natural experiment to overcome these problems.”
Sugar intake during rationing was about 8 teaspoons (40 grams) per day on average. When rationing ended, sugar and candy consumption skyrocketed to about 16 teaspoons (80 grams) per day.
In particular, rationing did not entail extreme deprivation of food in general. In fact, the diets overall appeared to have been within current guidelines set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the World Health Organization, which recommend no added sugars for children under two and no older than 12. teaspoons (50 g) of added sugar per day for adults. .
The immediate and large increase in sugar consumption, but no other foods after rationing ended, created an interesting natural experiment: individuals were exposed to different levels of sugar consumption early in life, depending on whether were conceived or born before or after September 1953. or those born just before the end of rationing experienced sugar-scarce conditions compared to those born just after, who were born in a more sugar-rich environment.
The researchers then identified those born around this time in UK Biobank data collected more than 50 years later. Using a very tight birth window around the end of sugar rationing allowed the authors to compare midlife health outcomes of otherwise similar birth cohorts.
While living the period of sugar restriction during the first 1,000 days of life substantially reduced the risk of developing diabetes and hypertension, for those who were later diagnosed with either of those conditions, the onset of the disease was delayed by four and two years. years, respectively. .
Notably, exposure to sugar restrictions in utero alone was enough to reduce risks, but protection against disease increased after birth once solids were likely introduced.
The magnitude of this effect is significant as it can save costs, extend life expectancy and, perhaps most importantly, quality of life, the researchers say.
In the United States, people with diabetes incur annual medical expenses of about $12,000 on average. Additionally, an earlier diagnosis of diabetes means a significantly shorter life expectancy, and each decade earlier that a diabetes diagnosis is made reduces life expectancy by three to four years.
These numbers underscore the value of early interventions that could delay or prevent this disease, the researchers say.
Experts’ concerns continue to grow about the long-term health of children as they consume excessive amounts of added sugars during their first years of life, a critical period of development. But adjusting children’s sugar intake isn’t easy: Added sugar is everywhere, even in baby and toddler foods, and kids are bombarded with TV ads for sugary snacks, researchers say.
“Parents need information about what works, and this study provides some of the first causal evidence that reducing added sugar early in life is a powerful step toward improving children’s health throughout life.” their lives,” says study co-author Claire Boone of McGill University and the University of Chicago.
Co-author Paul Gertler, of UC Berkeley and the National Bureau of Economic Research, adds: “Sugar in early life is the new tobacco, and we should treat it as such by holding food companies responsible for reformulating baby foods. with healthier options and regulate marketing. and tax sugary foods intended for children.
This study is the first in a broader research effort exploring how sugar restrictions in early life affected a broader set of health and economic outcomes in late adulthood, including education, wealth, and chronic inflammation, cognitive function and dementia.