Could the amount of sugar you consumed before your second birthday influence your health decades later, even up to age 70?
A new study my colleagues and I conducted suggests the answer might be yes. People who had less sugar Those exposed early in life were much less likely to develop several different types of cancer later in life, and also showed signs of slower biological aging. We also found that even into adulthood, they still consumed less sugar and had healthier diets overall.
This is not an easy question to study in real life. Obviously, researchers can’t perform that experiment on real babies: divide them into groups, feed one group sugar, and then wait 70 years to see what happens.
Britain’s post-war sugar rationing offered a rare alternative. After the Second World War, sugar remained rationed in Britain for several years. But in September 1953 rationing ended and people began to eat much more sugar. Consumption almost doubled. This meant that children born just a few months apart had very different levels of sugar exposure both in utero and during early childhood.
For our studiowe use data from more than 64,000 people Born in Great Britain between 1951 and 1956.. Those born earlier spent a greater proportion of their first 1,000 days under sugar rationing, while those born later experienced progressively less.
for him first 1,000 daysWe refer to the period from conception to the child’s second birthday. This is a critical stage because the body is developing very quickly. Organs grow, metabolism takes shape, and the immune system matures.
Food and taste preferences also begin to form during this period. Although 1,000 days is a relatively short period, the effects of the food environment during this stage can last a person’s entire life.
To track cancer cases, we use the UK Biobank, a huge health database that follows participants for decades and records, among other things, who develops cancer and when.
We found that people who experienced longer periods of sugar rationing during their first 1,000 days had a lower incidence of five types of cancer: breast, prostate, liver, rectal and lung cancer. The effect was strongest in liver cancer, where rates were about 69% lower, and weaker (although still substantial) in breast cancer, at 36% lower. Importantly, these differences only began to appear decades after sugar rationing ended.
We also found that exposure to sugar rationing is linked to biological aging. Biological age is not the same as chronological age. Two people can be 70 years old and their cells and immune systems show different levels of aging.
One way to measure biological aging is through telomere length. Telomeres are protective structures located at the ends of chromosomes. As cells age, telomeres typically shorten.
We found that people who experienced longer periods of sugar rationing during their first 1,000 days had longer telomeres. According to our estimates, this difference is equivalent to about 2.2 years of slower biological aging.
We also found lower levels of a protein called granzyme B, which increases when the immune system has been working overtime for years, another sign of slower aging at the cellular level. Together, these results suggest that lower exposure to sugar early in life may be linked to slower aging at the cellular level.
The sugar habit that lasted 50 years
But the most surprising thing is not the cancer outcomes or the biological markers of aging. Here’s how exposure to sugar early in life continued to affect people’s diets even 50 years later.
We found that people who experienced sugar rationing at a young age still consumed less sugar in adulthood, around age 50. They also ate less overall and their diets were healthier and more diverse. This suggests that the level of sweetness that people are exposed to very early in life can shape their taste preferences for a long time.
There appear to be two mechanisms at play. One is biological: early nutrition can determine how the metabolism, organs, and immune system develop. The other is behavioral: the taste for less sweetness, which formed early, seems to persist.
Other investigations Using the end of sugar rationing in Britain it has also been found that people who experienced greater sugar rationing earlier in life had lower risks of type 2 diabetes and hypertension. TO recent study using the same extreme of sugar rationing in Britain found lower risks of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, while another study They reported lower risks of heart disease and stroke.
This does not mean that children should not eat sugar at all, and it certainly does not mean that postwar sugar rationing is a desirable policy. What this historical evidence shows is that, during a critical period of development, even relatively small differences in sugar exposure over a short period can leave effects that are still observable half a century later.
Children may not remember what they ate before the age of two. But their later health, their bodies, and even their taste preferences may still bear the imprint of those early life experiences.