Health Consequences of Early Exposure to Sugar

Experts recommend that kids eat no added sugars before age 2. Yet most kids are exposed to added sugars at a very early age, even before birth through their mother’s bloodstream.

Scientists studied the long-term health effects of sugar exposure in the womb and early childhood. To do this, they looked at the health of adults in the United Kingdom who were conceived or born around the end of sugar rationing. The rationing had begun during World War II. The amount of sugar allowed for each person was within today’s U.S. dietary guidelines. After rationing ended, sugar intake nearly doubled.

The researchers looked at data from more than 60,000 people born in the U.K. between October 1951 and March 1956. Those born before July 1954 likely had reduced exposure to sugar due to rationing. Those born in July 1954 and later didn’t experience sugar rationing. As a result, they were born into a more sugar-rich environment.

Kids exposed to less sugar early in life had a lower chance of getting diabetes or high blood pressure decades later. Health benefits increased with longer exposure to rationing. For those with reduced sugar exposure for at least 19 months after birth, the risk of getting diabetes dropped by about 35%. The risk of high blood pressure dropped by about 20%.

“It is hard to find situations where people are randomly exposed to different nutritional environments early in life, and follow them for 50 to 60 years,” says Dr. Tadeja Gracner of the University of Southern California, who led the study. “The end of rationing provided us with a novel natural experiment to overcome some of these challenges.”