Is There A Dietary Critical Window for Children? Effects of Early Sugar on Chronic Diseases

 The TLDR:

• Early Nutritional Influences & Long-Term Health: Research highlights the profound impact of nutrition during the first 1,000 days on the later development of chronic conditions like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and obesity – conditions frequently encountered and managed by physical therapists.
• Implications for Pediatric PT & Patient Education: This study underscores the importance for pediatric PTs to understand the critical window of early nutrition and to educate families on the long-term benefits of limiting added sugars and promoting healthy dietary habits from infancy.
• Integrating Nutritional Considerations into PT Practice: While not primary nutrition providers, PTs can benefit from understanding the link between early nutrition and chronic disease risk, informing their holistic approach to patient care, particularly in pediatrics and when addressing lifestyle-related conditions.

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- Nutrition interventions for chronic diseases (e.g., obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases)

- Advanced nutritional strategies to support physical therapy for patients with metabolic disorders

- Case studies demonstrating successful integration of nutrition into physical therapy care plans

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Transcript:

Hello everyone, Dr. Wells here with Nutritional Physical Therapy. Just have a cool research update today. This one is actually a really unique article.

It's by Graessner, Boone, and Gertler, published in Science in November of last year. The title is Exposure to Sugar Rationing in the First Thousand Days of Life Protected Against Chronic Disease. So for me, this one's a good one for our pediatric PTs, particularly working with early childhood.

First thousand days, as we've heard, is really important for nutrition. In our courses, we cover this quite a bit in our pediatric section, and probably most notably, the amount of research behind things like folic acid and focusing on undernutrition is really important. It's actually probably one of the most evidence-based areas of nutrition.

We talk a lot about supplements for older adults, athletes, and stuff, and a lot of it gets kind of mixed and mingled within industry and conflict, but one thing we do know is that folic acid is probably one of the most important things that we can do, most evidence-based and effective. But regardless, the reason why this is a unique article, this is actually a natural experiment. So what these researchers do is they observe the effect of an event that affects an entire population and then try to draw inferences on how that affected that population.

And so in this case, they used about 60,000 individuals from the United Kingdom during 1942 through 1953. If any history buffs are out there, you're aware that that's during World War II. And during that time, the UK rationed food significantly, and that rationing, what it did is actually helped to reduce the intake of sugar and fat.

So what happened was at the end of that time period, around 1953-54, we saw an increase in sugar consumption 50% to 60%, and fat increased 10% to 20%, which equated to about 160 extra kilocalories per day. So what these researchers then did is analyze those that were undergoing rationing versus those that were not undergoing rationing. And what they found later in life, so they then looked at these people at 50 and 60 years of age to see how they looked in terms of chronic health diseases.

Well, not surprisingly, those that were on the rationed diets had a 36% reduction in type 2 diabetes, had a 19% reduction in hypertension, and a 31% reduction in obesity. So the author suggested maybe that 1,000 days for children is kind of like a critical window for nutrition, right? So for years we talked about undernutrition or malnutrition and folic acid, but now we're actually kind of shifting and looking at maybe we need to focus on overnutrition, right? And specifically that that first 1,000 days is vitally important for shaping the microbiome, and also maybe for epigenetic triggers and other factors that we're not aware of. So probably like behavioral, right? So like someone gets used to eating sugary foods and high-fat foods, it kind of changes their perspective and bias towards certain food types.

Regardless, the authors say the big focus should be that first 1,000 days children should be focused on predominantly breast milk, which we know that is the standard. Children should be having breast milk and breast milk only if they can. And they should also limit added sugar.

So this is also something else that is kind of coming out more and more is added sugars within the first 1,000 days should not be permitted. And part of that is, I think, some of this research on chronic diseases as well as gut microbiome changes and also behavioral, trying to get children to focus on more naturally rich foods such as fruit. So anyhow, if you like this, we have more research to come.

Check out our courses online. They are board approved for Florida, which makes them reciprocal for several other states. If you have questions, you can always email us.

We'll help you figure out stuff. And hope you have a great day.

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