"It suggests" if you ignore that their confounder control is terrible. First, sugar wasn't the only restricted food in post-war Britain - there was also rationing of eggs, butter, cheese and meats that ended during the same timeperiod. So you're not actually testing the effects of sugar consumption, now are you?
While I share your skepticism, I'd love to read the exact study, and know that they attempted to force monovariant analysis on a multivariant situation. That would go a long way towards settling this.
Also, the early 1950s was a period of rapid change in the US, including the maturation and expansion of the NHS (founded in 1948), the introduction of new childhood vaccines, major environmental shifts (for example, the Great Smog of London in 1952 vs. the 1956 Clean Air Act). Saying "all changes = sugar" just based on birthdate seems absurd.
But it isn't saying all changes are based on sugar. Maybe it's because they gave children a lot of Marmite on toast. 8^) It's just a study.
It would appear that you are suggesting that there might be a causal link between vaccines, clean air act (or whatever GB has for that) are creating this increase in cancer. Because this is a study taking data from before those occurrences. I'm pretty sure you aren't, but the timelines don't quite sync up with the Sugar thing.
Studies are just that. Looking for interesting data from the historical/medical record. And while interesting, they can show paths forward for research.
And I'm very skeptical, but not dismissive. We've had bad conclusions, even corruption in the "eat this, not that" business. If we use the US food pyramid, we see that years ago, the sugar industry had corrupt researchers point heart disease causation and other illnesses at fat and proteins. They even claimed that salt was bad. The food pyramid was heavily stacked toward grains and carbs. And interestingly, as people followed those guidelines, obesity and certain diseases like diabetes increased along with the increase.
Also interestingly, I noted that as I tried to incorporate the "proper" diet, my weight became very hard to control.
And in my parent's generation, there were only a few obese relatives and others I knew. And the way they ate, the so called healthy diets would predict they'd be dropping like flies. Lots of bacon, beef, butter, cheese, fat, and while they ate bread, the amount paled in comparison to what was considered healthy.
Most all of them lived to ripe old ages. Trim and generally healthy. Some passed away in their mid 80's from smoking related issues.
Point is, they ate more like the new guidelines. And of course, there were other factors. But the fact is, their "unhealthy diet" didn't seem to cause what it was supposed to create according to the smart people.
So in the end, studies just do what studies do, which is show interesting avenues for research. That people believe a study is a fact is kind of a people problem, not a study problem.
It's also worth mentioning that there's also survivorship bias - anyone who died before the study couldn't be enrolled, and there's also no actual linking to any maternal / childhood dietary logs. Also, the ratios of cancer differences they're describing aren't small, they're massive. Are we to attribute a lung cancer difference on the order of smoking vs. nonsmoking households as being to sugar, or due to, you know, smoking (or pollution) trends not accounted for in their cohort?
