Early-life sugar limits in postwar Britain linked to lower adult cancer rates in UK Biobank study

CAMBRIDGE, England - People who spent more of their first 1,000 days of life under British sugar rationing had lower rates of several cancers about five decades later, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported by Fox News.

Researchers used UK Biobank records for more than 64,000 people born from 1951 to 1956. Sugar rationing ended in September 1953. Afterward, average daily sugar intake in the United Kingdom nearly doubled from about 41 grams to about 80 grams, while intake of other major foods stayed roughly steady, historical National Food Survey data showed.

Participants with longer early exposure to rationing had lower adult incidence of liver, rectal, lung, prostate and breast cancers in the reported analysis. They also had longer leukocyte telomeres, a marker tied to slower biological aging, amounting to about two fewer years of aging in the study's estimate, and lower levels of Granzyme B, a protein linked to long-term immune activation.

Study author Weilong Zhang of the University of Cambridge told Fox News Digital the lasting diet patterns surprised the team. Adults who faced early sugar limits were still eating less sugar and more varied diets decades later. Authors pointed to both a possible biological imprint and lasting food habits.

Outside oncologist Dr. Brian Slomovitz of Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach called the work a useful hypothesis-generating study but urged caution. Case counts for some cancers were small, 1950s data have limits, and lung cancer is strongly tied to smoking. The authors said the natural experiment cannot rule out every other postwar factor, and UK Biobank is not fully representative. Zhang said the finding supports limiting added sugar in pregnancy and early childhood, not wiping out sugar entirely.