TOPLINE

Sugar restriction during the first 1000 days from conception was associated with lower risks for all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (AD) during adulthood, delayed disease onset, and improved brain health, compared with no sugar restriction, research showed.

METHODOLOGY

• Researchers used the end of the World War II era UK sugar rationing policy in September 1953 to test whether sugar exposure was associated with adult risk for dementia. They analyzed data of 64,737 UK Biobank participants (mean age at recruitment, 54.6 years; 56.4% women) born between 1951 and 1956 in the UK.
• Those born on or before June 30, 1954, were considered sugar exposed (40,963) and those born after considered not exposed (23,774). Exposure to sugar rationing was classified as in utero only, in utero plus the first year of life, in utero plus 1-2 years of life, or no sugar rationing.
• Medical records were used to identify dementia, and brain MRI and cognitive function assessments were conducted in a subcohort to evaluate neuroimaging outcomes including gray matter volume, white matter hyperintensities, and cognitive performance across multiple domains. The researchers also assessed whether incident type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and birth weight potentially mediated the association between exposure to sugar rationing and the risk for dementia.
• Primary outcomes were the incidence of all-cause dementia, AD, and vascular dementia and the onset of disease.

TAKEAWAY

• Sugar rationing in utero plus the first year of life and in utero plus 1-2 years of life were associated with lower risks for all-cause dementia than no sugar rationing (hazard ratio [HR], 0.79 and 0.77, respectively; P for trend = .012). They also were associated with lower risk of AD (HR, 0.77 and 0.72, respectively; P for trend = .041).
• Sugar rationing in utero plus 1-2 years of life was associated with a delayed onset of all-cause dementia by 2.55 years, AD by 2.87 years, and vascular dementia by 2.49 years compared with no sugar rationing.
• Early-life sugar rationing was associated with higher total gray matter volume (P = .022); lower white matter hyperintensities (P < .001); better performance in Trail-Making Test Part A (P = .038), and better complex processing speed (P = .04), verbal and numerical reasoning (P < .05), and nonverbal reasoning (P =.018) than no sugar rationing.
• Incident type 2 diabetes and hypertension jointly mediated 25.5% of the association between exposure to sugar rationing and dementia, whereas birth weight contributed only 2.7%.

IN PRACTICE

“Our findings suggest that limiting sugar during the earliest stages of life may have lasting benefits for brain health. These results highlight the potential importance of early-life nutrition in reducing the risk of dementia decades later,” said lead investigator Jiazhen Zheng, PhD, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Guangzhou, China.

SOURCE

The study was published online on July 29 in Neurology.

LIMITATIONS

Limitations included the study’s observational design, reliance on public national data on sugar rationing, and lack of complete information on maternal lifestyle factors.

DISCLOSURES

The study received no targeted funding. The investigators included no disclosures in their report.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.