Parents who want to reduce the risk their child will grow up to have diabetes or heart disease should consider restricting sugar consumption for their first 1,000 days, starting with conception.
A new study published in the journal Science finds that a low-sugar diet in utero and for baby’s first two years offers “meaningful” risk reduction for chronic disease as an adult. Those with sugar restrictions during those first couple of years had as much as a 35% reduced risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and as much as 20% less risk of hypertension. “Low sugar intake by the mother prior to birth was enough to lower risks, but continued sugar restrictions after birth increased the benefits,” per a news release on the study.
The researchers, from University of Southern California Los Angeles, McGill University in Canada and University of California Berkeley, used the “natural experiment” that was World War II sugar rationing in the United Kingdom and took a long look back at health outcomes to reach their conclusions. They noted that the UK limited sugar distribution in 1942 as part of food rationing, which didn’t end until September 1953.