Consuming less sugar before birth and during the first 1 to 2 years of life was tied to a lower risk of dementia decades later, U.K. Biobank data showed.The study used the abrupt end of World War II rationing as a natural experiment to test whether early-life sugar exposure was associated with late-life dementia.Previous research has linked early-life sugar rationing to less risk of diabetes and hypertension in adults and better cardiovascular outcomes.
People who consumed less sugar in utero and before age 2 had a lower risk of developing dementia later in life, data from 65,000 U.K. Biobank participants suggested.
The study used the abrupt end of World War II sugar rationing in the U.K. as a natural experiment to test whether sugar exposure during different windows in the first 1,000 days from conception was tied to later all-cause dementia, Alzheimer's disease, or vascular dementia.
Compared with people not exposed to sugar rationing, risks of all-cause dementia (HR 0.79, 95% CI 0.66-0.94) and Alzheimer's disease (HR 0.77, 95% CI 0.59-1.00) were lower for people who had sugar rationing in utero and their first year of life, reported Jiazhen Zheng, PhD, of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Guangzhou, China, and colleagues. Associations with vascular dementia were not significant.
