>
> In the same way, I am prepared to say that the stiffened arteries themselves
> may well be bad.  After all it may be true, as someone suggested, that bf
> sets up our fat-processing systems for a human diet that we no longer
> consume.    But since all the available evidence suggests that humans who
> were bf as infants do indeed have less cardiovascular disease later, we can
> safely conclude that the deleterious effect of the stiffened arteries, *if
> any*, is negligible compared to other benefits.

I'm impressed with all of your responses that go into the issue itself. I think we
should share our knowledge on this issue with the BMJ, since that will help
everyone, including Lucas and his staff, to look further for confounding factors,
and for possible explanations for the study results.

I was thinking about the fatty acids in the mother's diet. We know that while the
composition of human milk is very stable, the most variable is the composition of
the fatty acids, and that these varies with the diet of the mother.

We also should look further to wheter or not mixed feeding would be an issue. In
some cases the protective effect of breastfeeding isn't dose responsive and is
mixed feeding setting up for additional problems (next to HIV there are a few
study results that tend to show that, eg for allergies) , since the absorption of
the nutrients and protective factors migth be disturbed. In a further research
this should be investigated.

regards, Annelies Bon
Lay counsellor of the Dutch bf organization "Borstvoeding Natuurlijk"

Breastfeeding postcards: http://www.borstvoeding.com/shop/english.html
Ordering from US: http://www.attachmentscatalog.com/gifts/notecards.html

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html