Sugar Restriction in First 1,000 Days From Conception Linked to Lower Risk for Dementia

TUESDAY, Aug. 4, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Sugar restriction in the first 1,000 days from conception is associated with a lower risk for dementia, according to a study published online July 29 in Neurology.

Jiazhen Zheng, Ph.D., from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and colleagues examined whether exposure to sugar rationing within the first 1,000 days from conception is associated with adult risk for all-cause dementia, Alzheimer disease (AD), and vascular dementia (VaD).

The analysis included 64,737 U.K. Biobank participants born around the end of U.K. sugar rationing (September 1953); 40,963 were exposed to sugar rationing during fetal and/or early-childhood life and 23,774 were unexposed. The researchers found that sugar rationing in utero plus the first year of life was associated with lower hazards of all-cause dementia and AD compared with no exposure to sugar rationing (hazard ratios, 0.79 and 0.77, respectively). For exposure in utero plus one to two years, similar or slightly stronger associations were seen (all-cause dementia and AD: hazard ratios, 0.77 and 0.72, respectively). Exposure in utero plus one to two years was associated with delayed onset of all-cause dementia, AD, and VaD by 2.55, 2.87, and 2.49 years, respectively. In addition, higher total gray matter volume and lower white matter hyperintensity volume were seen in association with early-life sugar rationing (β, 3.27 and −0.64, respectively), which was also associated with better performance in processing speed and reasoning. Overall, 25.5 percent of the association was mediated by incident type 2 diabetes and hypertension.

“These results highlight the potential importance of early-life nutrition in reducing the risk of dementia decades later,” Zheng said in a statement.

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