Mothers who breastfeed their babies have a lower risk of developing or dying from heart disease than those who don’t breastfeed, finds new research from the University of Sydney, Australia.
Published in Journal of the American Heart Association, the study of over 100,000 Australian mothers participating in the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study found women who breastfed had a 14 percent lower risk of developing, and 34 percent lower risk of dying from, cardiovascular disease.
“At this stage we can’t pinpoint why but one of the likely theories is that the calories women expend breastfeeding, nearly 500 each day, are associated with positive changes in metabolism which help women that breastfeed to lower their risk of heart disease,” said Associate Professor Ding from the School of Public Health and Charles Perkins Centre.
Researchers from the University of Sydney, Australia linked retrospective survey data on breastfeeding from 2006 to 2009 from the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study – the largest ongoing study of healthy ageing in the Southern Hemisphere – with hospital admission and death data.