- Breastfeeding helps infants fight disease and lowers their risk of obesity
- Exactly how breastfeeding reduces risk of infection and gaining weight in childhood remains unclear, scientists say
- They believe it could be linked to benefits of breastfeeding on the development of the intestinal microbiota – bacteria in the child’s gut
- Increasing scientific evidence points to microbiota’s role in obesity
Lizzie Parry For Dailymail.com
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Breastfeeding can help children fight off diseases and lowers their risk of obesity in childhood, a new study has revealed.
Those infants who are breastfed have stronger immune systems and less chance of gaining excess weight, experts concluded.
Breastfeeding in children who had received no antibiotics before weaning had better resistance to diseases and a decreased body mass index (BMI) later in childhood, according to an article published online by JAMA Paediatrics.
Exactly how breastfeeding for a long period of time may reduce the frequency of infections and lower the risk of being overweight for children remains unclear.
Breastfeeding has been found to help infants fight disease and lowers their risk of becoming obese, a new study has concluded
But scientists say the benefits of breastfeeding may be due to the development of the intestinal microbiota, which is dependent on the infant’s diet.
Professor Katri Korpela of the University of Helsinki, Finland, said: ‘The protective effect of breastfeeding against high body mass index in later childhood was evident only in the children with no antibiotic use during the breastfeeding period.
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‘The results suggest that the metabolic benefits of breastfeeding are largely conveyed by the intestinal microbiota, which is disturbed by antibiotic treatment,’
The study included 226 Finnish children who had participated in a probiotic trial from 2009 to 2010.
Almost 97 per cent of children were breastfed for at least one month and the average duration of breastfeeding was eight months and information was collected in a questionnaire from mothers.
The authors report that among 113 children with no antibiotic use before weaning, breastfeeding was associated with a reduced number of post-weaning antibiotic courses and decreased body mass index later in life.
Among the 113 children who used antibiotics in early life during breastfeeding and through four months after weaning, the effect on post-weaning antibiotic use was only borderline significant and the effect on BMI disappeared, according to the results.
Scientists say the benefits of breastfeeding may be due to the development of the intestinal microbiota, which is dependent on the infant’s diet
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