Early Sugar Exposure and the Risk of Adult Anxiety

Level: B2

Printable: Student handout (PDF) | Teacher’s key (PDF)

Reading

Most research into diet and health has one persistent weakness: it depends on people accurately remembering what they ate, sometimes decades earlier. A rare exception exists in the United Kingdom, where the government strictly controlled the sugar supply through rationing, from the Second World War until 1953. Because rationing was decided by the government rather than by personal choice, scientists can now study early-life sugar exposure almost as though it had been a controlled experiment, without the usual problem of people simply choosing to eat more or less sugar. In 2024, economists writing in the journal Science used this history to link rationing in the first 1,000 days of life to a lower adult risk of type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. A 2026 study from the University of Surrey, published in Translational Psychiatry, used the same history to ask a harder question: could the amount of sugar a person consumed before the age of two shape their mental health many decades later?

Researchers analyzed health records from more than 45,000 participants in the UK Biobank, a large medical database, all born between 1951 and 1956, a period spanning the final years of strict rationing and the years just after it ended. The cohort was divided according to how long each person’s early sugar intake had been restricted. Some had experienced rationing only before birth, others through six, twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four months of life, and a comparison group had been born after sugar rationing ended completely, growing up with sugar freely available from birth. A further group born in Ireland, where sugar was no longer rationed in the early 1950s, was analyzed separately for comparison.

The results showed a fairly consistent pattern. Adults who had experienced the longest period of early sugar restriction tended to have the lowest risk of developing anxiety later in life, an association that appeared especially strong among women. A similar link showed up for depression at first, but it became much weaker once the researchers made a statistical adjustment for other factors that could explain it. The researchers suggest that depression, unlike anxiety, may be shaped more by diet later in adulthood than by what happened in infancy.

The researchers also examined brain scans collected from participants and found distinct differences linked to rationing history. Gray matter volume differed in 80 of the 139 brain regions studied when different rationing groups were compared with each other. Within that larger set, 11 regions showed a difference that was especially significant between most of the rationed groups and the group that had never experienced rationing at all, including parts of the cerebellum, a region best known for coordinating movement that also plays a part in processing emotions.

Early sugar exposure appeared to shape more than mental health alone. Participants who had experienced the least sugar during their first two years of life also reported the weakest adult preference for sweet foods, even though sugar consumption rose sharply for almost everyone once rationing ended nationwide. This pattern suggests that an infant’s early diet may influence food preferences that last for the rest of their life, not only their later risk of anxiety.

The study has real limits, and the researchers are careful about this themselves. It is a retrospective study, looking back at decades-old records rather than following newborns forward in real time with detailed diaries, and no one measured exactly how much sugar any individual actually consumed as a baby. Exposure was estimated only from national rationing rules and each person’s date of birth. Other social and economic differences between the postwar decades, not sugar alone, could also be confounding the results, and finding a link between early sugar exposure and adult anxiety does not establish causation: it does not show that one directly caused the other.

Even with these limits, the researchers argue that a dataset like this is unlikely to exist again, because it is hard to imagine another large population going without extra sugar and then having it slowly returned over several years. If the pattern holds up under further study, it would suggest that early nutrition policy, not only a person’s dietary habits later in life, can have a lasting influence on mental health. An obvious next test is whether a similar pattern appears in younger generations, who grew up with very different, and generally much higher, amounts of sugar from birth.

Vocabulary

Each word has a frequency score, a rank, and a tag. The score shows how common the word is in modern English: higher means more common, and each full point means roughly ten times more common. The rank is the word’s position on a list of about 321,000 English word forms, from most to least common. The tag shows where you are most likely to meet the word: Current, Formal, Literary, or Dated. The paragraph number shows where the word first appears in the reading. The labels are information, not instructions. Deciding which words are worth your time is up to you. How to read the scores, ranks, and tags.

The government controlled the sugar supply through rationing during the war.
Rationing meant that each family could only buy a fixed amount of sugar each week.

Scientists studied early-life sugar exposure using historical rationing records.
Long exposure to loud noise can gradually damage a person’s hearing.

The cohort included more than 45,000 people born in the same few years.
Doctors followed the same cohort of patients for over a decade.

Sugar was tightly restricted in the UK for more than a decade.
Access to the historic building is restricted to guided tours only.

The study found an association between early sugar exposure and adult anxiety.
There is a well-known association between smoking and heart disease.

After a statistical adjustment for income, the link to depression grew weaker.
The doctor made a small adjustment to the medication dose.

The scans showed distinct differences linked to each person’s rationing history.
The two languages have distinct grammar rules, even though they share many words.

The difference between the two groups was statistically significant.
Researchers found a significant change in brain volume across the groups.

Adults with less early sugar exposure reported a weaker preference for sweet foods.
Everyone in the family has a strong preference for spicy food.

An infant’s early diet may influence food preferences for life.
A teacher can influence how a student feels about a subject.

This is a retrospective study, based on decades-old health records.
In a retrospective review, doctors looked back at old patient files.

Other postwar changes could be confounding the study’s results.
Poor sleep can be a confounding factor in studies about diet and mood.

Finding a link between two things does not establish causation.
The lawyer had to prove causation between the accident and the injury.

Early nutrition policy might have a lasting effect on public health.
The government introduced a new policy to reduce sugar in children’s food.

Early nutrition may have a lasting influence on mental health.
The teacher’s kindness made a lasting impression on her students.

Activity Page

Open the activity page in a new tab

Speed Challenge

Answer 12 questions against the clock. Every wrong answer adds 5 seconds, and the lowest score wins. Open the speed challenge in a new tab.

Comprehension Questions

According to the reading, why is UK sugar rationing history useful for research?
What question did the University of Surrey study try to answer?
How did researchers divide the study participants into groups?
What was the key finding about anxiety risk and early sugar exposure?
What happened to the link between early sugar exposure and depression after statistical adjustment, and what might this suggest?
What did the brain scan results show?
How did early sugar exposure relate to adult food preferences?
List three limitations of the study mentioned in the reading.
Why does the reading say that finding a link does not establish causation? Why does this matter for how we understand this study?

IELTS-Style Questions

True, False, or Not Given: “The study proves that early sugar exposure directly causes anxiety in adulthood.” Explain your answer using evidence from the reading.
Yes, No, or Not Given: “The writer thinks diet research that relies on people’s memories has a weakness.” Explain your answer using evidence from the reading.
Author’s purpose: Why does the writer include a paragraph about the study’s limitations? Is the aim to dismiss the findings, to help readers judge the findings fairly, or something else?

AI Discussion Prompt

I just read an article about a study linking early-life sugar exposure to anxiety in adulthood. It covered how UK sugar rationing history let researchers study this, the main findings on anxiety and depression, brain scan differences, effects on adult food preferences, and the study’s own limitations, including the difference between an association and causation. I am an English learner at about B2 level. Please ask me one question at a time, starting with what I already knew about sugar rationing history. Respond to my ideas first, then briefly correct any language errors, and ask follow-up questions that make me explain my reasoning.

AI Vocabulary Prompt

I want to practice vocabulary from an article about early sugar exposure and adult anxiety. Please quiz me on the following words one at a time, using a mix of question types: multiple choice, true/false, and sentence completion. Give me feedback after each answer before moving on, and bring back the words I miss later. Here are the words: rationing, exposure, cohort, restricted, association, adjustment, distinct, significant, preference, influence, retrospective, confounding, causation, policy, lasting.

Discussion Questions

Before reading this, did you know sugar was ever rationed in any country? What did you know about it?
Does it surprise you that a decades-old government policy could still affect researchers’ understanding of health today?
The study found a stronger anxiety association in women than in men. Why do you think research results sometimes differ between men and women?
If you were a parent, would findings like these change how you think about a young child’s diet? Why or why not?
The reading separates a link between two things from causation. Can you think of a time you saw this difference ignored in the news?
Would you trust a 70-year-old dataset more or less than a brand-new study? Why?
The researchers say a dataset like this is unlikely to exist again. Why would it be difficult, or wrong, to create one on purpose?
Governments today set many food policies, such as sugar taxes. Should research like this influence those policies? Why or why not?
The study found a weaker link for depression than for anxiety once other factors were considered. Why might two related conditions respond differently to the same explanation?
If your own childhood diet had been very different, do you think your adult food preferences would be different too?
Scientists say more research is needed before drawing firm conclusions. Why do many important scientific questions take so long to answer with confidence?
Earlier research used the same rationing history to study diabetes and blood pressure. Why might scientists return to one historical event again and again?
Wars, famines, and new laws can all create accidental “natural experiments.” What other events in history might scientists study this way?
What is one question you would want to ask the researchers about this study?

Language Focus: Passive Voice in Research Writing

What it is: The passive voice (to be + past participle) puts the focus on the action or the result, not on who performed it. It is common in science writing when the person doing something is unknown, obvious, or simply less important than what was done.

Why writers use it: Research reports often use the passive voice because studies describe procedures and results, not the individual researchers doing each step. Recognizing it helps you read scientific writing more easily and write in a more formal register yourself.

Examples from the reading:

“The cohort was divided according to how long each person’s early sugar intake had been restricted.”
“A further group born in Ireland…was analyzed separately for comparison.”
“Exposure was estimated only from national rationing rules and each person’s date of birth.”
“…when different rationing groups were compared with each other.”

Practice task: Rewrite this sentence in the passive voice: “Researchers compared the two groups.”

(Example answer: “The two groups were compared by researchers.”)

Recommended Resources

Sugar Exposure in First 1,000 Days Linked to Higher Anxiety Risk in Adulthood (University of Surrey). The university’s own summary of the study, with comments from the researchers.
Early Life Sugar Exposure Linked to Higher Adult Anxiety Risk (News-Medical.net). A short news report on the main findings, with the full journal reference.
Dietary Sugar Exposure in Early Life and Risk of Adult Mental Health Disorders: UK Biobank Cohort Study (Translational Psychiatry). The full scientific paper, for readers who want to see the methods and statistics.
Sugar Restrictions In Utero and Early Childhood Reduces Risk of Chronic Disease (UC Berkeley). An earlier study that used the same rationing history to look at diabetes and high blood pressure.
Ending the Sweet Ration (The National Archives (UK)). A 1953 letter from sweet shop owners to the government about the end of sweet rationing.