00:00A very big study, 60,000 people, looking at something called the UK Biobank, where British
00:07people have volunteered kindly to have their health, well-being, sometimes their genes
00:12measured so that you can actually track factors that influence their health and well-being.
00:17And the people go back a long way.
00:19Now, during the war and after, I'm talking about World War II, there was rationing in
00:24Britain which severely restricted sugar.
00:26Now, this was not starvation.
00:29This was actually—the food rationing was designed to give you an adequate diet for
00:34good nutrition.
00:35And in fact, health went up paradoxically during World War II.
00:38There are plenty of studies showing that.
00:40But this was specifically looking at sugar restriction.
00:44And sugar restriction was lifted in September 1953.
00:49And what they did was they looked at babies that were born where the mothers had been
00:54pregnant during rationing and the time thereafter, and babies who were conceived after rationing
01:04and for 1,000 days thereafter, to compare the two when these people were between 50
01:10and late 60s.
01:13And what it showed was that—and rationing meant about eight teaspoons of sugar a day.
01:21And what happened after rationing was sugar consumption doubled almost overnight.
01:25So, it was a dramatic difference.
01:27And basically, people who are—their mothers had been pregnant during rationing, and they
01:33had been babies during rationing, or there had been babies during rationing, those people
01:38had a 35 percent lower risk of diabetes when they were adults and a 20 percent lower risk
01:44of high blood pressure.
01:45And if they were going to develop those conditions, they were delayed in their life by maybe two
01:49to four years.
01:50So, it was quite a dramatic difference between the two groups.
01:55The biggest effect was when the baby was about six months during sugar rationing and—because
02:02when the sugar rationing affected them when they were going on to solids.
02:07If they were still under rationing at that point, that had the biggest effect on their
02:12subsequent risk of diabetes and high blood pressure.
02:16But nonetheless, there was an effect—maybe about a third of the effect—during pregnancy.
02:21So when the mother was pregnant with that child, if she was experiencing sugar restriction,
02:26the child also had a lower risk of diabetes and high blood pressure.
02:30So it was really dramatic.
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