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Recent studies confirm breastfeeding lowers risk of breast cancer
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Organizations such as La Leche League have stated for years that women who breastfeed reduce their risk of breast cancer. Recent studies continue to confirm this, including a study just published in the current issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School have analyzed a study that was done on 60,075 women from 1997 to 2005.The study participants had all given birth and provided information about themselves, including breastfeeding.
This study found that women with a first-degree relative who had had breast cancer were less likely to develop pre-menopausal breast cancer if they breast-fed. In fact, researchers found that the risk reduction of 59% could be compared with hormonal treatment such as Tamoxifen for those women who are at a high risk of breast cancer. No similar connection was found in women who do not have a family history of breast cancer. The abstract of this study can be found here,
While this study did not find that the duration of breastfeeding decreased the risk of breast cancer, previous studies have found this to be the case. The seventh edition of La Leche League's The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding shares that studies conducted on 50,000 women with breast cancer and a control group of 97,000 women without breast cancer showed results that women who had given birth had their risk of breast cancer decrease by 4.3 percent for every 12 months of breastfeeding. (Lancet 2002; 360:187-95)
The news continues to be promising when it comes to the health benefits for both breastfeeding mothers and their children.
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