During World War II, food rationing was a super strict and not-fun thing that Britain had to live with. It was super necessary, though. Most of their food was imported – often through shipping routes vulnerable to attack. Rationing helped ensure fair distribution of scarce resources, such as meat, dairy, eggs, and sugar.
Sugar rationing was especially strict – as it was in the US, though for somewhat different reasons. American rationing also ended much sooner after the war’s end. Britain’s lasted nearly a decade.
Suffice it to say, these weren’t pleasant times, but they created something that researchers rarely get: a large-scale, real-world experiment, the results of which were the focus of research published last year in Science.
The findings were striking.
Compared to children born just after the end of rationing, the study showed that kids who were exposed to sugar restrictions during their first 1000 after conception had a 35% lower risk of type 2 diabetes and a 20% lower risk of hypertension as adults. When these conditions did develop, it was four and two years later, respectively.
Note that the subjects weren’t totally sugar-starved. Average intake during rationing was about 40 grams a day, or about the maximum that today’s guidelines recommend. Once restrictions were lifted, though, consumption immediately doubled. That single variable changed while everything else stayed the same.
“Studying the long-term effects of added sugar on health is challenging,” [lead author Tadeja] Gracner notes. “It is hard to find situations where people are randomly exposed to different nutritional environments early in life, and follow them for 50 to 60 years. The end of rationing provided us with a novel natural experiment to overcome some of these challenges.”
The findings suggest that limiting sugar exposure in utero and during the first two years of life could protect against type 2 diabetes and hypertension. This, in turn, could reduce health care costs and extend life expectancy. The findings reinforce the outsized impact of early diet on long-term health.
Just last month, another study based on this same “natural experiment” found that the sugar restriction appeared to benefit heart health, as well.
And So We Enter Sugar Season
And that brings us to now, where Halloween candy is a memory, and the carb-fueled feasts of Thanksgiving are on the near horizon. After that come December’s holiday parties and cookie exchanges and gingerbread houses and candy canes and chocolate gelt and so much more.
Sugar becomes practically ambient, almost unavoidable through New Year’s Day.
The holidays can be an especially tricky time for families. How do you navigate the constant treats without turning into the Fun Police? How do you protect your family’s health while acknowledging sugar’s deep roots in our celebrations?
Conventional dentistry typically focuses on minimizing damage, mainly with fluoride, still believing it to be our best defense against decay. But as recent research shows us, this strategy was never purely science-driven. According to a paper recently published in Environmental Health, Big Sugar did plenty to shape our approach to decay.
The Sugar Industry’s Fluoride Strategy
The new research shows that, starting in the 1930s, sugar industry researchers worked hard to redirect attention from sugar as the cause of cavities toward fluoride as the solution.
For instance, internal documents show that The Sugar Research Foundation secretly funded symposiums promoting fluoridation to thousands of dentists. Sugar executives chaired ADA committees shaping dental policy. In fact, one ADA journal editor with connections to both Kellogg and the sugar industry became a key fluoridation advocate while downplaying sugar’s role.
“The sugar industry was infiltrating the dental industry and putting out this sort of promotional work based on distorted science, exaggerating the benefits of fluoride,” [study author Chris] Neurath said.
And the strategy worked. Just as similar strategies did for Big Tobacco. For years.
Getting Through the Season
So how do we manage these next several weeks of Sugar Season? What’s reasonable? If sugar is your temptation, we recommend strategic moderation.
- Plan your indulgences. Decide which treats are actually worth it. Your aunt’s homemade pecan pie? Absolutely. Generic grocery store cookies at every meeting? Probably not. When you’re selective, you enjoy what you choose more and consume less overall.
- Keep whole foods visible and convenient. When you’re hungry and stressed, you’ll grab whatever’s easiest. Keep cut vegetables, hard-boiled eggs, nuts, and fruit where you can see them. Make nutrient-dense foods your default option.
- Don’t arrive hungry. Before parties or gatherings, eat something substantial. Protein and healthy fats are your friends. You’ll have more control when you’re not ravenous.
- Make treats only occasional. There’s a difference between pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner and a constantly refilled candy dish or cookie plate on the counter through December. When treats are events rather than background noise, your body has time to recover.
And though it goes without saying, we’ll say it anyway: Stay well-hydrated and keep up your normal oral hygiene routine. Water ensures good saliva production to keep the oral environment neutral and deliver minerals to your teeth. And even when travel or late nights disrupt your schedule, consistent brushing and thorough interdental cleaning help compensate for dietary splurges.
There’s a bonus benefit to all this, too: When you’re more mindful about sugar over an extended period, that awareness tends to stick. You notice how much better you feel with less of the stuff. Your energy stabilizes. Cravings diminish. You start to discern more between nourishment and empty calories.
Come January, you might not even need a resolution to clean up your diet. You’ll already have some momentum. Keep going.
