Data from 60,000 UK Biobank participants born around when sugar rationing ended suggest that restricting sugar during early years may have long-term benefits.
Summary
Children who grew up eating little sugar have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure later in life. This is even true for babies whose pregnant mums ate a lower-sugar diet, health data from 60,000 UK Biobank participants born during post-war sugar rationing have revealed. The researchers hope that their results will make baby-food companies consider reducing the sugar content in their products.
Children who grew up eating little sugar have a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure later in life. This is even true for babies whose pregnant mums ate a lower-sugar diet, data from UK Biobank participants born during post-war sugar rationing has revealed.
During World War II, rationing was introduced into the UK to avoid food shortages. Sugar and sweets, as well as meat, dairy and eggs, were restricted for more than a decade. When rationing came to an end in 1953, the amount of sugar people ate nearly doubled. Although other foods were also de-rationed at that time, people’s diets remained otherwise relatively unchanged.
A unique experiment
This period of rationing provided the researchers with a unique and unusual natural experiment. It’s normally incredibly challenging to find large numbers of people randomly exposed to different diets, explains lead researcher Tadeja Gracner from the University of Southern California, US. She and her colleagues analysed health questionnaire data as well as hospital and GP records from more than 60,000 UK Biobank participants born around the time sugar rationing ended in the UK.
Participants who were conceived when sugar was still limited had a 35% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes decades later, and a 20% reduced risk of high blood pressure, compared with those who were conceived later. The largest benefit was seen when children had less sugar once they started to eat solid foods at around six months old.
New guidelines for baby-food makers?
[The study] supports the notion of public health initiatives targeting sugar reduction, especially for pregnant women and young children.
Adam Lewandowski, UK Biobank Deputy Chief Scientist
UK Biobank Deputy Chief Scientist Adam Lewandowski explains that the results support the idea that factors such as diet play a critical role in children’s long-term health. This means that there is a real opportunity to intervene during this period, he adds. “It also supports the notion of public health initiatives targeting sugar reduction, especially for pregnant women and young children,” he adds.
Gracner hopes that her study will make food companies consider reducing the sugar content in products for babies and toddlers. “The dietary guidelines are pretty strict already,” she explains. “The [World Health Organization], for example, says that children below the age of two should actually not be consuming added sugar at all. But that is much easier to know than to comply with.”
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Pregnant people already have so much to worry about. If it’s just a little sugar here and there, everybody’s going to be fine.
Tadeja Gracner, University of Southern California, US
Diabetes and health policy specialist Amanda Adler, who was not involved in the study, suggests sugar rationing may be just one contributing factor. “It may be that at the same time rationing ended and people consumed more sugar, they also changed other habits becoming, for example, less physically active,” she tells the Science Media Centre. “So, this may have influenced in part their risk for diabetes later in life”.
Gracner adds that parents shouldn’t be too worried about her findings. “Pregnant people already have so much to worry about,” she tells Nature. “If it’s just a little sugar here and there, everybody’s going to be fine.”