- Decades of bottle-feeding babies may have left a costly
legacy, in both human and financial terms, of a generation of adults at
higher risk of death and disability from heart disease and stroke than
they should be, according to research published today.
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- The paper, published in the Lancet, one of the world's
leading medical journals, establishes beyond doubt that breastfed babies
become healthier adults.
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- The study, which has run for 20 years, found that babies
given breastmilk became adults with cholesterol levels on average 14% lower
than bottle-fed babies.
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- Breastfeeding babies, say the authors, could save many
lives. A 10% reduction in cholesterol would cut cardiovascular disease
by a quarter. At present it affects 10.7% of the UK population, which is
more than 5 million people. It could reduce deaths by 13-14%, saving over
30,000 lives a year in this country alone.
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- "It is quite possible that hundreds of thousands
of deaths in the west are prevented by breastfeeding and many more would
be prevented if the uptake of breastfeeding were greater," said Alan
Lucas, director of the Medical Research Council's Childhood Nutrition Research
Centre in London.
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- Almost a third of new mothers in the UK do not breastfeed
their babies at all, and beyond two weeks only half of all babies are breastfed.
Around 200,000 babies a year are put on to a bottle from birth.
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- Professor Lucas says that the study shows that breastfeeding
has the effect of "programming" the baby's body so that it will
produce less cholesterol in later life.
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- What is important is not so much the nutritional value
of the milk as the signal is sends to the developing system. The study
showed the "programming" was in place within as little as four
weeks of breastfeeding beginning.
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- Bottle-fed babies tend to grow faster than those who
are breastfed, but the study turns old thinking about small babies on its
head. It is not a good thing to feed them up rapidly, to turn them into
large and bonny bouncing babies. Slow growth appears to be better for their
health as adults.
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- For Prof Lucas and his team, this study completes a jigsaw,
confirming the trend of previous work on high blood pressure, diabetes
and obesity. In all of them, breastfed babies had better protection from
disease and ill-health than those given bottles.
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- "What we have shown from all our studies so far
is that the diet we are fed in early life is probably one of the most important
things we can control," he said. "Diets that promote more rapid
growth in early life put you at risk from heart disease and heart attacks.
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- "It is a revolution in one important respect. If
you talk to paediatricians and health professionals, they do think it is
best to have a big, strong, bonny baby and grow the baby as fast as you
can. We have to be careful not to grow the baby too fast. That would be
detrimental."
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- Prof Lucas' studies were triggered by the results of
work on animals as long as 40 years ago, which showed that what they were
fed in early life predetermined their pattern of health.
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- "I wanted to know if humans could be programmed
by early nutrition," he said.
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- But it would inevitably take decades to find the answer:
"Twenty-eight years ago we set up these randomised trials, knowing
it would take a long time to get the results. These trials are unique."
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- The results were more definitive than he had expected:
"Even we are really surprised by the size of the effect."
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- There have been observational studies in the past that
have noted that breastfed babies had less heart disease than those who
were bottle-fed. This study was a randomised controlled trial - the so-called
"gold standard" in science.
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- It followed up 216 premature babies who had been randomly
allocated to either human breast milk or to formula after they were born
in the 1980s and compared the cholesterol levels of the two groups.
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- The significance of the study stems not from the numbers
of babies but from the randomisation, the timespan and the substantial
difference in cholesterol levels (14%) found between the two groups.
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- The National Childbirth Trust, which works to encourage
new mothers to breastfeed, welcomed the research. "This new research
adds to the growing body of scientific evidence that demonstrates the numerous
benefits of breastfeeding," said Belinda Phipps, chief executive.
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- "We know that breastfed babies are less likely to
be overweight and have less chance of developing diabetes in childhood
for example but this research also suggests that breastfeeding can have
a major beneficial effect on health in later life too.
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- "Conversely, formula milk has been linked with a
higher incidence of respiratory disease, high blood pressure, ear and urinary
tract infections, diarrhoea and gastroenteritis.
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- "We need to see a real shift away from the current
bottle-feeding culture in the UK to one where breastfeeding is completely
accepted and supported by society so women are able to breastfeed wherever
and whenever their baby needs to be fed."
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- SocietyGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,7890,1216667,00.html
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