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Lactation duration tied to diabetes risk
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Women who breast-feed may have a lower risk for diabetes compared with those who never breast-fed, with the lowest risk among those with a lactation duration of at least 12 months, according to findings published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Erica P. Gunderson, PhD, MS, MPH, epidemiologist and senior research scientist in the division of research at Kaiser Permanente Northern California, and colleagues evaluated data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study on 1,238 women (mean age, 24.2 years; 50% black) without diabetes at baseline (1985-1986) with one or more live births after baseline. Participants reported on lactation duration and were screened for diabetes up to seven times during a mean follow-up of 24.7 years. Researchers sought to identify any association between lactation and progression to diabetes.
Overall, the diabetes incident rate was 6.6 cases per 1,000 person-years among all participants; incident rates were higher among black participants (9.9 per 1,000 person-years) compared with white participants (3.5 per 1,000 person-years). Incidence was higher in participants with gestational diabetes (18 per 1,000 person-years) compared with participants without gestational diabetes (5.1 per 1,000 person-years). Diabetes incidence was inversely associated with lactation duration with the lowest incidence in participants with lactation duration of more than 12 months (P for trend = .02). The adjusted relative hazards for diabetes incidence were 0.75 (95% CI, 0.51-1.09) for more than 0 to 6 months; 0.52 (95% CI, 0.31-0.87) for more than 6 months to less than 12 months; and 0.53 (95% CI, 0.29-0.98) for at least 12 months compared with 0 days of lactation (P for trend = .01).
“We found that longer duration of breast-feeding was associated with substantially decreased type 2 diabetes risk,” Gunderson told Endocrine Today. “Thus, there could be greater benefits for women from breast-feeding than previously recognized. Lowering the prevalence of diabetes among women would likely reduce future cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in U.S. women. This is because diabetes is a particularly important risk factor for cardiovascular disease in women.”
More research is necessary to understand the biological mechanisms underlying the relationship between diabetes risk and breast-feeding, Gunderson said.
“This is unlikely to be due to obesity because 30-year weight gain did not weaken the association of breast-feeding with diabetes risk in our study,” she said. – by Amber Cox
For more information:
Erica P. Gunderson, PhD, MS, MPH, can be reached through the media department of Kaiser Permanente at sara.vinson@kp.org.
Disclosures: Gunderson reports she received funding from Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Please see the study for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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