During and after World War II, between January 1940 and September 1953the United Kingdom rationed most food. For part of those fourteen years, everything except fish and fresh fruits and vegetables (which were often still in short supply) could only be purchased legally under strict limits and with government-issued coupons.

Sugar was among the restricted pantry staples. Sweets and candy were also rationed, while people kept calm and carried on. Adults were allocated about 40g of sugar per day and children over two years old were limited to less than 15g.

Despite the less than ideal economic conditions that drove the policy, new research on tens of thousands of people shows that cutting back on sugar conferred lifelong health benefits to those conceived amid rationing. The study, published on October 31 in the diary Scienceindicates that limiting sugar exposure in the 1,000 days after conception (including the intrauterine period and the first two years of life) reduces the risk of chronic diseases later in life.

The group of people born before or just after the end of sugar rationing were 35 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, 30 percent less likely to become obese and 20 percent less likely to develop hypertension during their lifetime than their peers who did not receive rationing. , according to the study. If those in the rationed group developed diabetes or hypertension, they tended to develop it years later in life.

Furthermore, the effects of intrauterine rationing alone accounted for about one-third of the lifetime risk reduction. For example, even among the cohort born in a world without rationing, people who spent at least part of their gestation period under restrictions had a 15% lower lifetime risk of type 2 diabetes.

“Not only should you watch your baby’s sugar intake, but you should also watch your sugar intake during pregnancy,” says Robert Lustigpediatric neuroendocrinologist and member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco. Lustig was not involved in the new work, but notes that the authors “did a very, very important service and a very good job.”

“What we found, in some ways, is not that surprising, because we already had a lot of knowledge about the association between sugar and poor health outcomes,” he says. claire boonestudy co-author and health economist at McGill University in Canada. “But the magnitude of our findings were something surprising,” he adds.

Lots of past research has established links between high sugar consumption and chronic diseases. However, the reduction in the risk of metabolic diseases associated with sugar rationing in the first years of life is enormous, on par with the effects of lifelong vegetarianism either quit smoking. This shows that dieting during a brief moment in a person’s overall development can have important consequences later in life.

“The most important takeaway is for parents,” says Paul Gertlerstudy co-author and health economist at the University of California, Berkeley. The new findings are some of the only clear causal human evidence of the value of following national and international sugar guidelines, he notes.

Guidelines United States federal agencies They say that babies and toddlers under two years old should not be given foods with added sugar, and that adults should limit their added sugar intake to less than 10% of your total calories. The American Heart Association’s recommendations are even stricter. The AHA suggests that added sugar should represent less than 6% of total calories in a healthy diet, which translates to an average of about 25 g per day for women and 36 g for men.

In reality, very few Americans manage to meet these official recommendations, and American adults eat 2 to 3 times the recommendation each day, on average. As a result, many people are born exposed to a lot of sugar in the womb. Then, they continue to be exposed to foods with added sugar from the beginning. via formula and processed foods marketed to parents of babies and toddlers.

“We all want to improve our health and give our children the best start in life. Reducing added sugar early seems to be a powerful step in that direction,” he says. Tadeja Gračnerlead author of the study and an economist who researches public health at the University of Southern California. However, doing so can be really difficult in an environment where most processed and packaged foods contain added sugar, he acknowledges. “We don’t want to add another stressor to the list for pregnant people,” says Gračner. “But it’s definitely information we need to get out there: that this is important.”

To reach their conclusions, the study authors analyzed data from the UK Biobank, a database containing genetic, demographic, health and lifestyle information on about 500,000 participants. They restricted their evaluation to a short period encompassing those conceived on either side of the end of rationing, born between October 1951 and March 1956, to minimize broader social and dietary changes over time (and minimize any effects on health of the Second World War itself). The rationed and unrationed cohorts used in the study were made up of about 38,000 and 22,000 people respectively.

“It doesn’t answer everything, but it’s an econometric analysis and it does infer causality,” Lustig says, something that’s hard to find in long-term human health studies. In other words, “it’s proof” of the impact of early sugar exposure on later diseases, he says, while other research has only been able to offer correlations or links.

There are some limitations of the work. For one thing, the UK Biobank is not a perfectly representative group and participants are likely to represent a relatively wealthier and whiter portion of the population, Boone says. Overall calorie consumption increased after dietary restrictions were lifted, so it’s impossible to completely separate the effects of that change from the effects of sugar. “Calories didn’t stay constant,” says Gračner, but she and her colleagues found that at least 77% of that calorie increase was due to sugar alone. And research does not firmly establish the mechanism by which early exposure to sugar increases disease risk.

However, the authors have a hypothesis: It seems likely that early exposure to sugar predisposes a person to a life of increased sugar consumption, says Gračner. She and her colleagues have already found evidence of this in some supporting analyses, which have not yet been peer-reviewed. Early follow-up research using data from the UK Nutrition Survey indicates that people in the rationed cohort continued to consume less sugar (although approximately the same total calories) throughout their lives compared to their non-rationed peers. Therefore, the mechanism at play here does not appear to be that 1,000 days of sugar exposure, alone, causes the observed health effects. Instead, “it’s something that pushes you toward a different trajectory, with different behaviors,” he explains.

These findings will hopefully help inform personal decision-making, Gertler says, but also drive changes and regulations across society. “I think we need a public policy response to sugar in the same way we had a public policy response to tobacco,” he says, including things like labeling laws, taxes and restrictions on advertising. He points to soda taxes as examples of legislation that has proven effective in reducing sugar consumption.

“We should also think about holding companies accountable,” adds Gračner. Baby formula may need to be reformulated, he says.

However, amidst all the not-so-sweet news, there is a little silver lining (or candy coating). “We don’t want to take away the joy of Halloween or other upcoming holidays. A birthday cake, sweets or anything else, if taken in moderation, will not ruin our lives,” says Gračner. “It’s not about a piece of cake here or there. “It is an excessive intake of added sugar on a daily basis.”