Breast-Feeding Stems Diabetes — Cuts Risk 15 Percent for 15 Years

By Scripps Howard News Service

Breast-feeding for a full year can reduce a woman’s risk of developing diabetes by 15 percent for up to 15 years, according to a new study.

“We’ve known for a long time that breast-feeding is good for babies. In this study, we found that it’s good for moms, too,” said Dr. Alison Stuebe, a researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and lead author of the report published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

The new study is based on data from more than 157,000 childbearing women who took part in the Nurses Health Studies. In surveys done every two years, the women reported how many children they had breastfed and for how long, as well as answering numerous questions about their health. The questions included whether they had been diagnosed with Type 2 (adult-onset) diabetes by a physician.

After considering such factors as diet, exercise, weight and vitamin use, the researchers calculated what effect breastfeeding had on long-term diabetes risk.

They found that, generally, the longer a woman breastfeeds, the bigger the reduction in diabetes risk. So, if a woman has two children and breastfeeds each for a year, the data indicate that the mother may reduce her risk of diabetes by a third.

That makes sense, given that producing milk requires a breast- feeding mother to use an average of 500 calories a day – the equivalent of running five or six miles.

“The study supports the theory that breast-feeding may be associated with important metabolic changes that influence diabetes risk,” Stuebe said.

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The University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Dr. Marshall Boudlin , director of the Diabetes and Metabolic Center, said the fact that the study’s subjects were nurses diminishes its validity:

” They’re very well motivated and more affluent than (average). … One of the reasons the (reduced diabetes risk) happens is in the physiology of breast-feeding. … The mother gains weight in pregnancy so she has stored calories to feed the baby after it is born. … If you don’t breast-feed, it’s hard to lose that weight.”

– Compiled by Mark Watson

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