Bonus from mother's milk

Los Angeles Daily News, Staff
Published May 15, 2004

For years, health professionals have been preaching that breast milk is best for baby. Now, a new study says the benefits of breast-feeding may last well past infancy and even affect your risk of heart disease. The study found teenagers who'd been breast-fed as infants had a lower ratio of bad to good cholesterol and lower levels of C-reactive protein, a possible marker of heart disease, in their blood than teens who had been fed formula as babies. "What we've shown is that breast-feeding is a beneficial risk factor for heart disease and stroke,' said study author Dr. Atul Singhal, deputy director of the MRC Childhood Nutrition Research Center at the Institute for Child Health in London. Singhal said that means "breast-feeding is not only good for the short-term,but has a huge impact on long-term health as well.' The new study appears in the May 15 issue of The Lancet. ADDED HEFT: Adding a new wrinkle to the long-running debate over the safety of fish consumption by pregnant women, British researchers are reporting that fish appears to boost the weight of newborn babies. The findings, which contradict previous studies linking consumption of fish oil to longer pregnancies but not bigger babies, add "to the evidence that fish is an important part of the human diet,' said study co-author Imogen Rogers, a researcher at University of Bristol in England. However, a U.S. environmental watchdog organization continues to advise American women to stay away from most fish if they're pregnant or thinking about having a child. The risk from mercury in the fish is just too large, contends the Washington D.C.-based Environmental Working Group. Indeed, the U.S. government advises pregnant women and young children to avoid a number of types of fish, including shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish. The British researchers studied 11,585 pregnant women in southwest England who completed surveys about their fish consumption. The mean consumption of fish per day was 33 grams -- the equivalent of one-third of a small can of fish, Rogers said. Most of the fish eaten was whitefish. About a third was oily fish (a category that includes tuna and swordfish), and 6 percent was shellfish. The researchers didn't ask if the fish was canned or fresh. They report their findings in the June issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.