A Toddler’s Sugary Diet May Raise Their Lifetime Risk of Diabetes

A child’s early years can shape their whole life. According to a new study, the amount of sugar a child consumes in their first 1,000 days could determine their chances of developing Type 2 diabetes decades later.

Published in Science, the study compared the health of British people born under World War II rationing restrictions and those born a few years later, when rationing had ended.

The researchers found that the slightly older adults – who didn’t have access to sugar in their early years – had significantly lower levels of Type 2 diabetes than the slightly younger adults, who would have had access to sugar when they were toddlers. 

The legacy of rationing

To compare the lifetime implications of sugar consumption in early years, the researchers – from the universities of Southern California, California Berkeley and McGill – took the novel approach of using UK Biobank data taken from over 60,000 participants who were conceived just before and just after September 1953, when wartime sugar rationing came to an end in the UK.

During rationing, there was no sugar allowance for children under the age of two. And, according to the researchers’ findings, that kind of cap may have lifetime benefits.

The researchers observed that an adult conceived before, but born after, sugar rations ended had a 15% lower risk of developing diabetes and a 5% lower risk of developing hypertension than someone conceived after rations ended. Toddlers who reached the age of 1.5 before rationing ended fared even better, with a 40% lower risk of diabetes and a 20% lower risk of hypertension compared with those who never experienced rationing.

Overall, the slightly older adults in the UK Biobank dataset had 35% fewer cases of diabetes and 20% less hypertension than the slightly younger adults. When these diseases were present in the older adults, they tended to be delayed by four and two years, respectively.

The researchers say their results support many current infant dietary guidelines, which advocate little-to-no sugar consumption.

“What’s fascinating is that sugar levels allowed during rationing mirror today’s guidelines,” Claire Boone, an assistant professor in McGill’s Department of Economics and co-author of the study, said in a statement.

“Our study suggests that if parents followed these recommendations, it could lead to significant health benefits for their children.”

While echoing the same health advice, other dietary researchers have questioned how well the study supports such guidance.

“We still don’t really know if the children less likely to get diabetes later in life were indeed the ones not exposed to sugar in utero or after birth – even in a setting of rationing,” Amanda Adler, a professor of diabetic medicine and health policy at the University of Oxford, said in a statement to the Science Media Centre.

“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.  So, this may have influenced in part their risk for diabetes later in life.”

According to Adler, full clinical trials will be needed to determine the acute effect of sugar on young children.

“This study is an open invitation to clinical trialist to clarify the ‘right’ levels of sugar to add to the diet for pregnant or lactating women, and for their infants,” she said.

Reference: Gracner T, Boone C, Gertler PJ. Exposure to sugar rationing in the first 1000 days of life protected against chronic disease. Science. 2024. doi: 10.1126/science.adn5421