BREAST FEEDING

There is an intense interest in the effects
of breastfeeding on the health of an off-
spring and in understanding the mecha-
nisms behind these effects. It is widely
known that breastfeeding is the most nu-
tritious way to feed an infant, but it is
less known that the benefits that a child
and mother receive from breastfeeding
continue throughout life, even after
breastfeeding has stopped. The most im-
portant short-term immunological benefit
of breastfeeding is protection against in-
fectious diseases. There is also some evi-
dence of lower prevalence of inflammatory
bowel diseases, childhood cancers, and
type-I diabetes in breast-fed infants, sug-
gesting that breastfeeding influences de-
velopment of the own immune system of
an infant
1
. One of the most consistent
findings of breastfeeding is also a posi-
tive effect on later intelligence tests, with
a few test points advantage for breast-fed
infants

Is breastfeeding a best lifestyle
approach to prevent and reduce
non-communicable diseases?
In the last few years, several systematic
reviews and meta-analyses have exam-
ined the effect of breastfeeding on non-
communicable diseases
2
. There seems to
be a protective effect against later over-
weight and obesity. Blood pressure and
blood cholesterol seem to be slightly lower
in individuals who were breastfed as in-
fants. Identification of lifestyle approaches,
including breastfeeding practices are now
considered an ideal way to decrease the
dramatic increases in childhood obesity
and the emergence of type-2 diabetes in
youth, and to primary prevention of both
conditions. Among adults, breastfeeding
in infancy has been associated with re-
duced risk of type-2 diabetes
3
, but little
is known regarding the potential benefi-
cial effect of breastfeeding on the deve-
lopment of type-2 diabetes in adolescence.
Mayer-Davis et al.
4
have recently re-
ported a protective association of breast-
feeding against the development of type-
2 diabetes in youth in a dose-response
fashion, independent of other potentially
confounding variables. Attenuation of
the odds ratios when body mass index
score was added to the models was consistent with a causal pathway in which
breastfeeding may lower the risk for
childhood overweight, which may in turn
reduce risk for type-2 diabetes