Research indicates that reducing sugar consumption during the first two years of life can have lasting positive effects on heart health. Experts found that individuals who had minimal sugar intake in early childhood, along with mothers who also consumed low sugar during pregnancy, had a lower likelihood of developing heart conditions such as heart attacks, heart failure, and strokes.

The study, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), analyzed data from the sugar rationing period in the UK during World War II. Health records of 63,433 individuals from the UK Biobank, born between October 1951 and March 1956 without a history of heart disease, were reviewed. The research compared 40,063 individuals exposed to sugar rationing from 1940 to 1953 with 23,370 who were not.

Findings revealed that individuals exposed to sugar restriction during pregnancy and the first two years of life had a reduced risk of heart disease by 20%, heart attack by 25%, heart failure by 26%, atrial fibrillation by 24%, stroke by 31%, and cardiovascular death by 27% compared to those never exposed to rationing. Longer exposure to sugar rationing correlated with progressively lower heart risks, attributed in part to lower blood pressure and reduced incidence of diabetes.

During the rationing period, sugar intake was limited to less than 40g per day for everyone, including pregnant women and children, with no added sugars for infants under two years old. Researchers from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and the School of Medicine in Boston, USA, emphasized the critical role of nutrition in shaping lifelong cardiometabolic risk during the first 1,000 days after conception. They highlighted the association between early-life sugar restriction and decreased risks of heart-related conditions and mortality.