Diabetes: Breast-feeding May Help Babies and Women Against Diabetes

Babies and women may be protected against developing diabetes disease through breast feeding, according to new research. This current study states that the longer women nursed, the lower their risks of developing diabetes.

Diabetes as a medical disorder characterized by varying or persistent elevated blood sugar levels, especially due to eating, is a serious disease which symptoms are very similar for all types of diabetes.
Breast feeding is when a woman feeds a baby or a young child with milk produced from her breasts. The best thing for feeding a baby is breast milk, as experts say, if the mother does not have transmissible infections.
Although study findings are not conclusive, researchers explain that breast-feeding may change metabolism of mothers which may help keep blood sugar levels stable and make the body more sensitive to the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin.

This theory is based on some evidence that show that in rats and humans that are breast-feeding, mothers have lower blood-sugar levels than those who did not breast-feed.

According to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, women who breast-fed for at least one year were about 15 per cent less likely to develop diabetes type 2 than those who never breast-fed. For each additional year of breast-feeding, there was an additional 15 per cent decreased risk.

A total of 157,000 nurses participated in the new study. They answered periodic health questionnaires and were followed for at least 12 years. During the study, 6,277 participants developed type 2 diabetes.

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