Rachel Myr says:
> Do any of you have any experience with mothers with the synovitis variant
of
> juvenile rheumatoid arthritis?
> Now I want to know if anyone has
> first-hand experience with women with this condition who have breastfed.
>
Linda Barrett recently posted on this subject. See her post copied below.
Barb Strange
----- Original Message -----
From: "Linda Barrett, IBCLC" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2002 5:43 PM
Subject: BF Protects against rheumatoid arthritis
Hi All,
In the event that this has not already been posted, Jean Cotterman has asked
me to send you the following article. Happy Holidays!
Linda Barrett, IBCLC
Ob.Gyn. News Home Back Issue Archive Search
December 15 2002 • Volume 37 • Number 24
Obstetrics
Large prospective study
Breast-Feeding May Offer Protection Against the Onset of Rheumatoid
Arthritis
Diana Mahoney
New England Bureau
NEW ORLEANS — Breast-feeding for a lifetime total of more than 12 months
protects women against the development of rheumatoid arthritis, a large
prospective cohort study has shown.
The longer a woman breast-feeds, “the less likely she is to develop
rheumatoid arthritis,” Dr. Elizabeth W. Karlson reported at the annual
meeting of the American College of Rheumatology.
It has long been surmised that female reproductive hormones may play a
role in the etiology of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
Small case-control studies have suggested that breast-feeding may in fact
contribute to an increased incidence of RA. Hoping to clarify these
relationships, Dr. Karlson and her colleagues at Brigham and Women's
Hospital, Boston, analyzed data from the Nurses' Health Study, a
longitudinal cohort of 121,701 women.
Of the study participants, 593 women had confirmed incident RA, and of
those, 82% were rheumatoid factor positive. The investigators used
logistic regression modeling to assess the significance of potential RA
risk factors prior to disease onset in these women.
The specific RA risk factors involved included age, smoking status, body
mass index, age at menarche, parity, age at first live birth, total
lifetime breast-feeding, oral contraceptive use, irregular menstrual
cycles, age at menopause, and postmenopausal hormone use.
In a multivariate model that adjusted for these factors, a strong trend
emerged associating a lower risk of RA with a longer duration of
breast-feeding. (See table.)
“We did not find similar trends associated with the other reproductive
hormone factors, such as age at menarche, first birth, or menopause;
number of children; oral contraceptive use; or irregular menstrual
cycles,” Dr. Karlson commented in an interview.
The specific mechanism of breast-feeding–related risk reduction has yet
to be determined, but the finding may lead to the identification of RA
markers and the development of targeted hormone-influencing therapies,
she said.
The longer a woman breast-feeds, the less likely she may be to develop
RA. Lynda Bandzi
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