Just in time for Halloween, a new study finds that giving kids sugar when they’re really young — even in the womb — increases their risk of developing type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure later in life.
The researchers determined that limiting exposure to sugar in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life — from pregnancy to age 2 — reduced the risk of diabetes by about 35% and the risk of hypertension by 20%, and delayed the onset of the disease by four years and two years, respectively.
“Only sugar rationing in utero was protective, but most of the risk reduction occurred when rationing lasted beyond 6 months of age,” the international team of researchers wrote Thursday in the journal Science.
The study authors used data from post-World War II sugar rationing in the United Kingdom to compare the health outcomes of adults conceived shortly before and after the decade-long rationing that ended in 1953.
The study included 60,183 participants born between October 1951 and March 1956 – they were surveyed in their 50s or 60s.
Those born between October 1951 and June 1954 were considered sugar rationed, and those born in July 1954 or later were unrationed.
Nearly 4,000 participants were diagnosed with diabetes during the study period and almost 20,000 with hypertension.
“The risk of disease diagnosis increased with age for everyone, but it increased most rapidly among adults with little or no exposure to rationing,” the researchers noted. “Disease risk began to change when participants were in their mid-50s, and the biggest differences were seen after age 60.”
Eating too much sugar can damage cells, causing chronic inflammation, which has been linked to heart disease, diabetes, liver disease and cancer.
Sugar also promotes obesity – a widespread public health crisis in the US – and tooth decay.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans advise against allowing children under 2 to consume foods or drinks with added sugar.
However, the study authors found that over 70% of formulas, foods or drinks marketed to infants or young children contain added sugars.
By age 2, the researchers said, many children consume the recommended daily amount of sugar for adults of about seven teaspoons, nearly tripling that amount by their teenage years.
“Early exposure to sugar in early life may affect health by intensifying a lifelong preference for sweetness,” the study authors wrote. “Infancy and infancy in particular are critical periods for developing a taste for sweets (or even addiction) that can increase sugar consumption throughout life.”
One of the limitations of the new study is that the researchers don’t know exactly how much sugar the participants consumed in early childhood.
“Further research is needed to understand the optimal levels of added sugar consumption during pregnancy, lactation, and after the introduction of solids, as well as their pathways to influence long-term health,” the study authors wrote.
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