Everyone loves a sweet treat. However, recently, scientists have found that children who had sugar restrictions in the first 1,000 days from conception, had a 20% less chance of developing hypertension and a 35% less chance of developing type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is a chronic condition that can lead to long-term health complications, including heart disease, kidney failure, nerve damage, and vision problems. Usually, restriction when the baby is still in the womb is good enough to prevent these conditions, however, the extended use of these restrictions further protects from possible complications.
Before World War II ended, there were extremely strict restrictions on sugar, where people were only allowed to consume about 41 grams of sugar. These restrictions on sugar ended in 1953 since the need for rationing food was not present anymore. Because of this, the increase in sugar consumption led to more sugar intake and a rise in type 2 diabetes and hypertension, especially in today’s world. The current recommended intake of sugar is about 25 grams for children two years and older. For children younger than two years, no added sugar is recommended.
Interest and concern in the future health of children who are consuming over the limit of sugar led to a study done recently by Tadeja Gracner, Claire Boone, and Paul J. Gertler. Tadeja Gracner is a research scientist who works in the Center for Social and Economic Research (CESR) at USC and is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation. She researches and writes about diseases that correlate with obesity, as well as what are its socio-economic causes and risk factors. Claire Boone is an assistant professor at McGill University in the Economics Department and the Equity, Ethics, and Policy Department. Her research is mainly about using behavioral economics to understand and improve health services. Paul J. Gertler is an Economics professor at UC Berkeley and holds many positions, such as the Faculty Director of the Institute for Business & Social Impact and the Scientific Director of the Center for Effective Global Action. His research mainly involves childhood development, education, health, etc. Together, they examined the effect of sugar exposure within 1,000 days of conception on diabetes and hypertension. They compared six different groups of adults to research the effects of sugar rationing exposure (exposure to sugar rationing): 5 groups who rationed sugar intake at different times of those 1,000 days and 1 group who did not ration.
The results of about 60,000 people measured in their study showed that the more months taken for rationing exposure, the lower the rate of type 2 diabetes shown to go down compared to the adults who did not experience sugar rationing. It starts at 15% when starting from in utero (inside the womb) and continues to increase in percentage as the rationing exposure increases. This means that children are less likely to get diabetes at a younger age. There is a similar trend for hypertension as well. However, the reduction of risk seemed to be smaller than the type 2 diabetes risk reduction results.
So why was this experiment conducted? Over the years, as more and more sugar has been incorporated into children’s food, scientists have grown concerned about what the amount of sugar children consume now does to their health. Because of this experiment, there is more insight into what sugar does to children, especially if they are being given more sugar than needed at their age. This experiment was conducted to get a better look at the long-term effects of early sugar consumption on children.
