Exclusive breastfeeding during a baby\u2019s first 4 months or longer is associated with reduced risk for childhood\u2011onset asthma and IgE sensitization into young adulthood. The findings, from a study by Inger Kull, PhD, and colleagues, highlight the need to inform parents that breastfeeding in the first months of life may lower the risk for childhood asthma.<\/p>\n
Breast milk is rich in components that are beneficial for infants; however, whether it decreases the risk for asthma remains unclear because study results have been inconsistent. Long-term research is needed to ascertain the protective value of breastfeeding for asthma, prompting researchers to conduct this investigation, which followed participants up to young adulthood.<\/p>\n
The authors collected background information from baseline questionnaires on 3,919 newborns who were part of a Swedish birth cohort. Data collection included symptoms of allergic disease at ages 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 24 years using questionnaires. The research team also performed clinical exams, including lung function assessments and blood tests, at ages 4, 8, 16, and 24 years. They adjusted results for potential confounders, such as sex and family history of allergies.<\/p>\n
Analyses showed that exclusive breastfeeding for at least 4 months was linked to an overall decreased likelihood of asthma up to age 24 (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=0.75; 95% CI, 0.64-0.87). Age-specific assessments indicated that a statistically significant inverse association with asthma was present up to age 12 years but not older. Asthma phenotype evaluations revealed a borderline significant inverse link to early transient asthma and a significant inverse link to persistent asthma (aOR=0.64; 95% CI, 0.48-0.84). Despite these associations, no connection to late-onset asthma was noted.<\/p>\n
Breastfeeding was also inversely linked to IgE sensitization (aOR=0.82; 95% CI, 0.70-0.96). In addition, when children with early symptoms of eczema and\/or wheezing during breastfeeding were excluded, the associations with asthma and sensitization strengthened.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis beneficial effect of breast-feeding on allergic asthma may be due to the immunomodulatory properties of breast milk (eg, IgA, cytokines) or, potentially, an impact on the infant gut microbiome,\u201d explained the authors. \u201cBreast milk also includes human milk oligosaccharides, microbes, and long-chain fatty acids, all of which may plausibly influence immune maturation and risk of allergy and asthma.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers concluded that advocating for breastfeeding is a low- or no-cost public health measure that may reduce the burden of childhood asthma. Despite the results, they added, breastfeeding alone \u201cis unlikely to fully prevent all cases of asthma in children.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exclusive breastfeeding during a baby\u2019s first 4 months or longer is associated with reduced risk for childhood\u2011onset asthma…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[163,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-377967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}