Breastfeeding may protect women against arthritis

According to a new study in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases that compared 136 women with rheumatoid arthritis to 544 without the condition, women who had breastfed for 13 months or more were half as likely to develop the disease as those who had never breastfed. The study also found that taking oral contraceptives did not have the same effect.

Experts said previous studies showed that "breastfeeding was a risk factor for developing rheumatoid arthritis in a small group of women soon after giving birth to their first child."

Source: "Breast-feeding, but not oral contraceptives, is associated with a reduced risk of rheumatoid arthritis" Annals of Rheumatic Diseases. Published Online First: 13 May 2008. doi:10.1136/ard.2007.084707 (f/t via Athens)

breastfed babies are smarter

Several newspapers reported on a study that found prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding makes kids smarter.

This is a large randomised trial involving more than 17,000 babies to see if a breastfeeding programme of promoting the duration and exclusive breastfeeding has an effect on childhood intelligence. The babies were followed up to 6 years. The decision of breastfeeding was the women's own choice.

The study found that children from the breastfeeding promotion group scored significantly higher than the controls on scores of vocabulary, similarities and verbal IQ.

Source: "Breastfeeding and Child Cognitive Development :New Evidence From a Large Randomized Trial" Archives of General Psychiatry. 2008;65(5):578-584. (f/t via Athens)

Breast milk and higher IQ - it is in the gene

Two studies of more than 3,000 children in Britain and New Zealand found that breastfeeding raised IQ if the children also had a variant of a gene, called FADS2, found in 90% of people, which helps metabolize the fatty acid efficiently.


Source: "Moderation of breastfeeding effects on the IQ by genetic variation in fatty acid metabolism" Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. (PNAS) November 5, 2007 (subscription required)