Keeping sugar consumption within USDA guidelines early in life offers big benefits to midlife health. (Composite: Rhiannon Montelius. Image source: iStock.)
Restricting sugar before birth and in early childhood greatly reduces risk of chronic disease later in life
Researchers at USC Dornsife, UC Berkeley and McGill University take advantage of a “natural experiment” from World War II to analyze how sugar rationing influences long-term health.
A low-sugar diet during pregnancy and in the first two years of life can meaningfully reduce the risk of chronic diseases in adulthood, a new study has found, providing compelling new evidence of the lifelong health effects of exposure to sugar restrictions early in life.
Published in Science, the study finds that children who were in the womb or born during times of sugar restrictions during their first 1,000 days after conception had up to 35% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and as much as 20% less risk of high blood pressure (hypertension) as adults. Exposure to limited sugar before birth was enough to lower risks, but continued sugar restriction after birth increased the benefits.