Researchers have found that lower sugar consumption during the first two years of life may be associated with a reduced risk of certain cancers and a slowing of biological aging.
The study, conducted by researchers using data from more than 64,000 people born in Britain between 1951 and 1956, relied on a rare opportunity afforded by the sugar rationing system that continued in the country after World War II.
Sugar regulation was abolished in September 1953, leading to a significant increase in its consumption. The difference in the timing of birth among the participants provided an opportunity for researchers to compare people who were exposed to different levels of sugar during pregnancy and the early years of their lives.
By “the first thousand days,” researchers mean the period from the beginning of pregnancy until the child reaches the age of two. This is a stage that witnesses rapid growth of organs, development of metabolism, and maturation of the immune system, and during which food and taste preferences begin to take shape.
The results showed that people who spent a longer period of their early childhood under sugar rationing were less likely to develop five types of cancer: breast, prostate, liver, rectum, and lung cancer.
The greatest decrease was in the risk of developing liver cancer, by about 69%, while breast cancer saw a decrease of about 36%.
These health differences only emerged decades after the end of sugar rationing, suggesting that early life dietary conditions may have had a lasting impact.
The researchers also found a link between reduced sugar exposure in early childhood and certain indicators of biological aging.
Biological age differs from chronological age, as two people of the same age can show different levels of aging at the cellular and immune system levels.
The researchers measured one of these indicators by the length of telomeres, which are protective structures found at the ends of chromosomes and which typically shorten as cells age.
The results showed that people who had been subjected to sugar rationing for a longer period had longer telomeres, a difference that researchers estimated was equivalent to about 2.2 years of slowed biological aging.
They also recorded lower levels of the protein "granzyme B," which is associated with the functioning of the immune system for extended periods, which they considered an additional indicator of differences in aging at the cellular level.
The difference was not limited to health indicators, as researchers found that the impact of early dietary environment may extend to habits adopted by a person in adulthood.
People who lived their early childhood during the sugar rationing period were, at around the age of fifty, consuming less sugar and food in general, and their diets were more varied and healthier.
Researchers believe this may be due to two overlapping factors: the first is biological, which is the effect of early nutrition on the development of metabolism, organs and the immune system, and the second is behavioral, which is the likelihood of food preferences formed in the early years of life continuing.
These findings are consistent with other studies that used data from the period of sugar rationing in Britain and found a link between reduced sugar exposure in early childhood and a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as indications of a reduced risk of dementia, Alzheimer's disease, heart disease and stroke.
These findings do not mean that children should stop eating sugar, nor do they mean that sugar rationing was an ideal health policy. However, they do suggest that the nutritional environment during the early stages of life, a rapid and crucial period of growth, may have health and behavioral effects that last much longer than previously thought.
In other words, a person may not remember what they ate before the age of two, but their body and eating habits in later stages of life may retain some traces of that early period.
