BMJ Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases – women who breast feed for longer halve risk of rheumatoid arthritis

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) has issued details of a study regarding breastfeeding and rheumatoid arthritis as published online ahead of print in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.

According to the research, women who breastfeed for longer have a smaller chance of getting rheumatoid arthritis. The study also found that taking oral contraceptives, which are suspected to protect against the disease because they contain hormones that are raised in pregnancy, did not have the same effect. Also, simply having children and not breastfeeding also did not seem to be protective.

The researchers compared 136 women with rheumatoid arthritis with 544 women of a similar age without the disease. They found that that those who had breast fed for longer were much less likely to get rheumatoid arthritis.

Women who had breastfed for 13 months or more were half as likely to get rheumatoid arthritis as those who had never breastfed. Those who had breastfed for one to 12 months were 25 per cent less likely to get the disease.

The proportion of women breastfeeding for more than six months has increased dramatically over the past 30 years. The authors concluded that it was difficult to say whether there was a connection between higher rates of breastfeeding and a corresponding fall in the number of women affected by rheumatoid arthritis, but that the results of the study provided yet another reason why women should continue breastfeeding.