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A study published on Friday in the journal Science found that reducing sugar in the first 1,000 days after conception – through gestation up to age 2 – may cut a child’s risk of chronic illnesses in adulthood, CNN reported.

The researchers found that reducing sugar consumption in this window decreased the type 2 diabetes risk by about 35% and the risk of high blood pressure by roughly 20%. They also found a delay in disease onset of four and two years, respectively.

The research team looked at data from before and after the end of the United Kingdom’s World War II-era sugar rationing in September 1953.

In January 1940, the UK began rationing to allow “fair shares” of food for the country during the wartime shortage, according to the Imperial War Museums. Access to foods like sugar, fats, bacon, meat and cheese was limited.

When the rationing of sugar and sweets ended in September 1953, the average adult’s daily sugar consumption in the UK nearly doubled almost immediately, from about 40 grams to 80 grams.

The researchers looked at health data from the UK Biobank, a large biomedical database and research resource that follows people long-term, on roughly 60,183 participants born between October 1951 and March 1956, before and after the end of the rationing, to determine the effects of such a large increase in sugar consumption.

“Sugar rationing created an interesting natural experiment,” said Tadeja Gracner, the lead author of the study and a senior economist at the Center for Economics and Social Research at the University of Southern California.

The analysis of a six-year period showed a 30% decrease in obesity risk for babies conceived or born during rationing, with a faster increase in type 2 diabetes and hypertension in those after the sugar ration ended.

The study also found that limiting sugar consumption in utero and in early life may cut down on a “lifelong preference” for sweets, with in utero rationing alone making up roughly one-third of the risk reduction.