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blackvault
Site Admin
Joined: Sep 10, 2001
Posts: 3660
Location: USA
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 Posted: Sat Jul 20, 2002 4:29 am Post subject: Breastfeeding Cuts Risk of Breast Cancer, Study Says |
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By Patricia Reaney
LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists confirmed on Friday what researchers have long suspected -- breastfeeding reduces a woman\'s risk of developing breast cancer.
Along with having several children, breastfeeding is a key factor in the discrepancy between low rates of breast cancer in developing countries and the rising number of cases in wealthier nations.
\"The longer women breastfeed the greater protection against breast cancer,\" Professor Valerie Beral, of the charity Cancer Research UK, told a news conference.
Beral and her team estimate that if women breastfeed each of their children for an additional six months they could cut their lifetime risk of developing breast cancer from 6.3 to six percent and prevent more than 1,000 cases of the disease each year in Britain alone.
\"What we have shown is that prolonging breastfeeding and having more children pushes down breast cancer rates,\" Beral added.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. A family history of the disease, early puberty, late menopause and not having children are factors which increase the chance of a woman developing the disease.
Scientists first suspected that having children and breastfeeding could have a protective effect against the disease as far back as 1743 when a study showed that nuns had high rates of breast cancer compared to other women.
Other research has linked the number of children and the age of the woman when she first gives birth with the disease but the latest study, which is published in The Lancet medical journal, is the most comprehensive in examining the role of breastfeeding.
Beral and her colleagues analyzed data from 47 studies done in 30 countries of 50,000 women with breast cancer and 100,000 healthy volunteers.
They calculated that for every year a woman breastfeeds, it cuts her risk of breast cancer by 4.3 percent. Their findings help to explain why breast cancer rates are so low in developing countries where women have six or seven children, compared to two or three in western countries, and they breastfeed each child for up to two years.
Women in developed countries feed their children naturally for about two or three months. Fifty percent of mothers in the United States, about 25 percent in Europe and about 10 percent in Scandinavia choose not to breastfeed.
Beral calculated that if western reproductive and breastfeeding habits mimicked those in poor countries, a woman\'s breast cancer risk by the age of 70 would fall from 6.3 per 100 women to about 2.7.
The National Childbirth Trust, which promotes breastfeeding, said the research clearly shows the benefits for mothers as well as children.
\"We hope that this important finding -- that the longer women breastfeed, the more they are protected from breast cancer -- will encourage more women to consider breastfeeding their baby,\" said Belinda Phipps, the chief executive of the trust.
The scientists are not sure how childbirth and breastfeeding reduce breast cancer risk but they believe the findings could pave the way for better prevention and treatment methods.
\"It is likely to do with hormones and reproductive behavior,\" said Sir Paul Nurse, the Nobel Prize winning interim chief executive of Cancer Research UK.
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=sciencenews&StoryID=1221641
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