Psychology & Behavioral Science Active Updated Oct 24, 2026
Early-life sugar and the aging brain
Where it stands as of Oct 24, 2026
People conceived during Britain's sugar rationing, which gave children under two no sugar ration at all, had a 27% lower dementia risk and 46% lower Alzheimer's risk than those conceived after it ended, PsyPost reported from UK Biobank data. It is a natural experiment, not a trial, and the brain-aging difference was only slight. Whether sugar itself drives the difference, rather than other changes that came with the end of rationing, is not known.
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Oct 24, 2026 Latest
PsyPost reported that people conceived during Britain's 1942 to 1953 sugar rationing, which gave children under two no sugar ration at all, had a 27% lower dementia risk and 46% lower Alzheimer's risk than those conceived after it ended, with slightly slower brain aging decades later, in UK Biobank data.
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