Britain was forced to ration sugar during World War II
Fox Photography/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Sugar rationing during and after World War II appears to have improved the health of pregnant people in Britain at the time, reducing their risk of developing type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure decades later. This suggests that reducing sugar intake early in life may improve health outcomes in adulthood.
Exposure to high-sugar diets in utero has previously been associated with an increased risk of obesity, which is known to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and hypertension. However, it is unclear whether this is a causal relationship, and investigating such questions has been hampered because it is difficult and even unethical for researchers to force people to eat a certain diet. .
But the same is not true of wartime governments. That’s why Tadeja Gluckner and her colleagues at the University of Southern California decided to take advantage of a situation like the natural food experiment during World War II. In January 1940, a few months into the war, the British government began rationing food. This included limiting sugar intake for adults to about 40 grams per day. More than a decade later, in September 1953, rationing ended and people rapidly nearly doubled their sugar consumption.
Gluckner’s team analyzed the health records of more than 38,000 people studied as part of the UK Biobank project between 2006 and 2019. They were all between 51 and 66 years old at the time of the study, and had become pregnant within a few years before the end of rationing, meaning they were exposed to limited sugar intake in utero and during childhood. The researchers also looked at the same data from 22,000 people who became pregnant about a year after rationing ended. The two groups had a similar composition in terms of gender and ethnicity, and a similar family history of diabetes, allowing us to compare them.
In both groups, more than 3,900 people were diagnosed with diabetes and 19,600 with hypertension, but the prevalence of both conditions was much lower among those who became pregnant during the rationing period. Members of this group were 35 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes by their mid-60s, and those who did develop it did so on average four years later than those who became pregnant after rationing ended. As for high blood pressure, people in the rationing group were 20 percent less likely to develop hypertension by their mid-60s, again delaying onset by an average of two years.
Importantly, while rationing led to many changes in the diets of people in Britain, cutting sugar appears to have made the biggest difference. Despite changes in food availability, the average diet during the rationing period contains similar levels of fat and other types of foods such as meat, dairy, cereals, and fruit as after the rationing. I did. One explanation, Gluckner says, is that increased exposure to sugar during childhood may predispose people to sweet foods throughout their lives. It may also cause epigenetic changes that make people less able to control their blood sugar levels, increasing their risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, she says.
Alternatively, Scott Montgomery of Sweden’s Örebro University found that pregnant women during rationing were more likely to be pregnant during the rationing period than because their sugar intake itself was lower, but because their calorie consumption was generally lower as a result of their lower sugar intake. They say this may explain improvements in people’s health. During the rationing period, people ate about 100 fewer calories per day, and this calorie reduction played a role, as those who became pregnant during the rationing period had a 30 percent lower risk of becoming obese than those who became pregnant later. It suggests that. “It may not necessarily be due to exposure to high blood sugar; it may be due to other causes,” Montgomery says.
In any case, the UK’s recommended sugar intake today is similar to that during rationing, but the actual intake is much higher. Montgomery said the results show there are clear benefits to the cuts. “People should reduce their sugar intake to recommended levels.”
topic:
