London – A study suggests that Britons born before 1953 are in better health…thanks to the Luftwaffe.
In recent days in the National Assembly, deputies have clashed over whether or not it is necessary to tax sugar more, by creating a tax on processed foods containing added sugar or by modifying the existing tax on sugary drinks. The question divides the government in particular, with the Minister of Health Geneviève Darrieussecq being in favor of it, while the Minister of Agriculture Annie Genevard is opposed to it.
A new study published by American researchers in the journal Science October 31 could give food for thought to supporters of sugar taxation. The authors of the article wanted to focus on the long-term health effects of exposure to sugar in utero and during the first 1,000 days of life.
Problem: it seems ethically and materially difficult to conduct a randomized trial consisting of depriving children of sugar at the beginning of their lives and then following them for decades. American researchers therefore decided to travel back in time to the 1950s.
British seniors can say thank you to rationing
During and after the Second World War, many European countries, including the United Kingdom, were subject to rationing of foodstuffs (but also gasoline, clothing, soap, etc.). This rationing, which concerned sugar in particular, was only lifted in September 1953 among our neighbors across the Channel. Thus, British people over 71 years old would have had very little exposure to sugar during their early childhood.
From there, the American researchers used data from the UK Biobank, a vast medical database that tracks more than 500,000 British volunteers. Of these, 60,000 were born between October 1951 and March 1956, approximately between 1,000 days before and 1,000 days after the end of rationing.
The epidemiologists were therefore able to form two groups of individuals: those who were very little exposed to sugar in utero and during their early childhood due to rationing and those who consumed it normally (we know that sugar consumption exploded as soon as rationing ended).
The period studied being relatively short, the authors of this work put forward the (questionable) hypothesis according to which the two groups were subjected to a relatively similar environment and that exposure to sugar during early childhood is the only differentiating variable.
The researchers were able to observe, as they expected, that the individuals who underwent sugar rationing were in relatively better health than the others. They therefore have a risk of developing type 2 diabetes reduced by 35% and of being hypertensive by 20%. On average, rationed individuals developed type 2 diabetes four years older than non-rationed subjects and hypertension two years older than others.
Fart under bombs
« Sugar rationing alone in utero appears protective, but most of the risk reduction is observed when rationing has continued beyond the age of 6 months » write the authors. According to them, the purpose of the study is obviously not to advocate rationing of sugar (although) but to show the importance of diet during the first years of life and the long-term benefits of a varied diet.
While it may be surprising that rationing continues to have consequences more than 70 years later, the beneficial effects of these measures were already well known. Most historians agree that rationing helped improve the health of the British, especially the poorest, by offering them a more varied diet with less fat content.
During the war, infant mortality fell and life expectancy (once violent deaths due to war were excluded) increased. The British were not mistaken, three-quarters of them saying they were satisfied with rationing in 1944.
The British government of the time was also well aware that rationing was not dangerous for the health of Her Majesty’s subjects. In 1939, shortly before rationing was implemented, two researchers from the University of Cambridge carried out a study involving submitting themselves to rationing.
They concluded that rationing had no negative consequences on their health, although with some side effects: outstanding » increased flatulence and a 250% increase in the amount of excrement produced. So here’s a fact that the glorious history of British resistance to the Blitz, the German bombing campaign, preferred to omit: under the German bombs, the brave British kept farting.
