Breastfeeding Cuts Mom's Risk for Type 2 Diabetes
Breastfeeding your baby can cut your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
"We found that breastfeeding is really good for mothers," says study author Dr. Alison Stuebe, at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
"Each year she breast-feeds cuts the risk of type 2 diabetes by 15 percent," says Dr. Stuebe.
Breastfeeding offers a host of health benefits for babies.
Along with providing optimal nutrition, breast milk also provides compounds that boost babies' immune systems and help protect against bacteria, viruses, and parasites, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
In addition, breast-fed children have lower rates of childhood illnesses and tend to be leaner than their formula-fed counterparts.
And research has shown mothers benefit as well: Breastfeeding helps a mother's body return to normal faster after pregnancy, according to the FDA.
Some studies have suggested that women who breastfeed for long periods of time may have lower rates of breast and ovarian cancer.
But, no long-term studies had examined the effect of breast-feeding on maternal risk of diabetes, Dr. Stuebe says.
Dr. Stuebe and her colleagues suspected breastfeeding might affect type 2 diabetes risk because it substantially changes a mother's metabolic requirements. Research has shown that breast-feeding improves insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance.
The researchers used data from the Nurses' Health Study and the Nurses' Health Study II, which together included more than 150,000 women who had given birth during the study period.
More than 6,000 of these women were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
After controlling for body mass index (BMI) - because a high BMI is a known risk factor for type 2 diabetes - the researchers found that long-term breastfeeding reduced a woman's risk of developing diabetes.
The risk was decreased by 15 percent for each year of breastfeeding for women in the Nurses' Health Study, and by 14 percent for each year for those in the Nurses' Health Study II, according to the researchers.
Dr. Stuebe remarks that they were not able to determine how breastfeeding might offer some protection against diabetes, only that breastfeeding was associated with a drop in the rate of type 2 diabetes.
However, she notes, the researchers suspect that breastfeeding may help keep blood sugar in balance.
Breastfeeding mothers burn almost 500 additional calories daily, according to the study. That is equivalent to running about four to five miles a day, explains Dr. Stuebe.
"If done for a year, it's not surprising that it might have an effect on how the body takes care of insulin and glucose," she says.
Dr. Loren Wissner Greene, an endocrinologist at New York University Medical Center in New York City, says the explanation for why women who breastfeed for long periods may have lower rates of diabetes could be a simple one: "The small weight changes from lactation can make a significant impact on diabetes risk."
In fact, Dr. Wissner Greene says, the best advice for anyone to avoid type 2 diabetes is to maintain a healthy weight, and lose weight if you are carrying excess weight.
Another potential explanation could be that women who breastfeed for a long time are more health-conscious than other women, and may have a healthier diet, may exercise more, and do other health-promoting activities that could reduce their diabetes risk.
Dr. Stuebe says the researchers tried to take lifestyle factors into account and still saw an association between breast-feeding and reduced diabetes risk.
The bottom line, says Dr. Stuebe: "We're talking about an intervention that doesn't cost anything, has no side effects, and has other potential benefits."
Always consult your physician for more information.
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There are many reasons why breast milk is the best milk, including the following:
nutrients
Human survival depends more on brain power than on strong muscles, rapid growth (rapid maturity), or body size, so your breast milk is rich in the nutrients that best promote brain growth and nervous system development.
Research has found that breastfed babies perform better on different kinds of intelligence tests as they grow older.
They also develop better eye function. This is due mostly to certain types of fat (fatty acid chains) in human milk, which are not available in artificial formulas.
The sugar (carbohydrate) and protein in breast milk are also designed to be used easily and more completely by the human baby.
Your milk is the perfect first food to help your baby achieve every aspect of ideal growth and development.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies who are exclusively breastfed receive additional vitamin D.
Your baby's physician can recommend the proper type and amount of vitamin D supplement for your baby.
anti-infective properties
Only human milk is alive with many different kinds of disease-fighting factors that help prevent mild to severe infections.
Babies who are fully or almost-fully breastfed, or babies fed breast milk with a bottle, have significantly fewer gastrointestinal, respiratory, ear, and urinary infections.
Antibodies in human milk directly protect against infection. Other anti-infective factors create an environment that is friendly to "good" bacteria, referred to as "normal flora," and unfriendly to "bad" bacteria, viruses, or parasites.
Human milk also appears to have properties that help a baby's own immune system work best.
If your baby does become ill when breastfeeding and receiving your milk, the infection is likely to be less severe.
easily digested
Since nature designed human milk for human babies, your milk is the most easily digested food your baby can receive.
A nutritious, yet easily digested first food is important for a baby's immature digestive tract.
Your baby uses less energy, yet breaks your milk down more completely into its basic ingredients, so the nutrients, anti-infective factors, and all the other ingredients in your milk are more available to fuel your baby's body functions and to promote your baby's growth and development.
bio-availability
Bio-availability is a fancy way of referring to how well the body can use the nutrients in a food.
The high bio-availability of nutrients in human milk means your baby gets more benefits from the nutrients it contains - even for nutrients that appear in lower levels in breast milk when compared to artificial formulas (because your baby's body can absorb and use them most effectively).
It also means your baby saves the energy that would be needed to eliminate any nutrients he/she had difficulty digesting or using.
suitability
Your milk is best suited to, and so it is more gentle on, your baby's body systems.
The suitability of your milk plays a role in your milk's digestibility, and it allows your baby's body to function most efficiently while spending a lot less energy on body functions.
Suitability is also thought to be one reason that breastfed babies are less likely to develop allergy-related skin conditions and asthma.
Always consult your physician for more information.
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