New study demonstrates the long-term damaging health effects of sugar exposure in utero and infancy
Sugar is bad no matter how you look at it. It leads to inflammation and the many diseases it causes, contributes to obesity, feeds cancer cells and decays teeth. And now, a new study has shown that its incredibly negative effects can even be damaging to babies while they are still in utero.
The study takes a different approach than much of the existing literature on this topic as it goes back to 1953, when the UK ended its rationing of sugar and candy that was implemented during World War II. At that time, people started returning to candy stores in droves and sweetening food at home with abandon. The country’s sugar consumption doubled within a year’s time.
The researchers saw an opportunity to explore the effects of sugar in utero thanks to the phenomenon, so they examined food surveys and sugar sales from the 1950s and compared them to the medical records of adults listed in the UK Biobank database to see how they fared throughout their lifetime. They were able to use data from 60,000 people born between 1951 and 1956 to reach their conclusions.
They found that those who were conceived or born after 1953 had much higher rates of hypertension and type 2 diabetes later in life than those who were born while the rationing was in effect.
Interestingly, of the 60,000 cases they looked at, the individual’s likelihood of having either hypertension or type 2 diabetes depended on how many of their first 1,000 days occurred before rationing. Those who fared best were infants who reached the age of 1 ½ years before rationing ended, noting a 20% lower risk of hypertension and a 40% lower risk of type 2 diabetes than those who were not born or conceived while rationing was taking place. The effect was particularly noticeable in women.
An epidemiologist for the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Edward Gregg, called the study “fascinating.”
“Although we know … sugar influences diabetes risk, to have a natural experiment like this wherein you have a whole population under a [dietary] restriction, followed by a dramatic change and in turn a big impact on diabetes and hypertension, I think is pretty profound,” he commented.
Americans are still consuming excessive amounts of sugar
Although the new study may have some limitations due to its design and does not take into account other potential lifestyle factors, it does align with numerous others demonstrating the harms of sugar consumption in utero. Exposure to sugar while in the womb could impact fetal development in a manner that might predispose the individual to metabolic diseases, while infants who eat a diet loaded with sugar could develop a preference for sweet foods that sees them consuming a lot more sugar as adults.
Sadly, babies are exposed to an unnatural amount of sugar both in utero thanks to their mothers’ diets and after birth thanks to the ridiculous amounts of sugar added to all manner of food products in Western countries, including baby food.
The average pregnant woman in America eats more than 80 grams of added sugar each day, which is three times the recommended limit for adults in general, and more than four fifths of toddlers and babies eat food containing added sugar each day. The dietary guidelines in the U.S. recommend that Americans aged 2 and older keep their added sugar intake at less than 10% of their daily calories, which equates to four tablespoons for an adult who eats a 2,000-calorie diet; those under age 2 are advised not to eat any added sugars.
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