Dr. Alison Steube, whom I interviewed for this podcast on formula gift bags, is co-author of a new study showing that breastfeeding offers some protection against breast cancer for premenopausal women with a family history.
The study, to be published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found:
"Women who had a first-degree relative with breast cancer had a lower risk of developing the disease if they had ever breastfed than if they had never breastfed. The association did not appear to change based on duration of breastfeeding, whether breastfeeding was exclusive or whether the woman experienced amenorrhea (absence of menstruation) as a result. There was no association between breastfeeding and breast cancer among women without a family history.
Women who did not breastfeed but used medication to suppress breast milk production also appeared to have a lower risk of breast cancer than women who neither breastfed nor used lactation suppression. This association could be related to disordered involution, or a malfunction in the process by which mammary tissue returns to its pre-pregnant state caused by engorgement and inflammation, the authors note."
More posts on breast cancer and breastfeeding are here. More on this study is here at the New York Times.
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