Breastfeed and Reduce Breast Cancer Risk - For You and Your Baby

Are you concerned about breast cancer? Most women are. It doesn't help that women seem to be getting breast cancer at younger ages. The recent news of Christina Applegate's cancer has many younger women scared.

If you're breastfeeding, then you can be assured that you're doing something positive to cut your risk for developing one of the most common forms of cancer among women. And you're protecting your baby as well.

The World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR) found convincing evidence that breastfeeding protects mothers from developing breast cancer, both before and after menopause. Breastfeeding also protects the breastfed child from developing cancers that are linked with being overweight and obesity. These include post-menopausal breast cancer and cancers of the esophagus, pancreas, colorectum, and kidney.

One reason breastfeeding reduces the mother's risk for developing breast cancer because it causes her to stop menstruating for many months. Some women do not resume menstruating (and therefore ovulating) until after they stop breastfeeding altogether - even for several months or two years or more. This period of amenorrhea, or absence of menstruation, is a signal that the woman's hormones have shifted to a state that reduces her chances of developing breast cancer. And the longer a woman breastfeeds, the greater her protection against breast cancer.

Apparently, the natural hormonal changes that women experience during menstruation increase breast cancer risk. This explains why women who have never been pregnant (another period of amenorrhea) have increased risk for breast cancer.

Another way that breastfeeding may protect mothers from breast cancer is by getting rid of breast cells during lactation. These include cells that could develop or already have damaged DNA.

Don't worry, the damaged cells aren't harming your baby through your breastmilk. In fact, breastfed babies have reduced risk for developing breast cancer and other forms of cancer. And again, the longer the baby is breastfed, the greater the protective effect.

Breastfeeding is only one of the many ways that you can protect your baby and yourself against cancer. WCRF/AICR gives the following 10 recommendations to help you avoid cancer:

1. Be as lean as possible within the normal range of body weight for your body type.
2. Be physically active as part of everyday life. Exercising three times a week halves your cancer risk.
3. Limit consumption of energy-dense foods. Avoid sugary drinks.
4. Eat mostly foods of plant origin: whole grains, vegetables, fruit, legumes.
5. Limit intake of red meat and avoid processed meats that contain nitrites and nitrates.
6. Limit alcoholic drinks - more than one a day is associated with increased cancer risk.
7. Limit consumption of salt. Avoid moldy cereals (grains) or pulses (legumes).
8. Aim to meet nutritional needs through diet alone, not supplements.
9. Mothers to breastfeed; children to be breastfed.
10. Cancer survivors: Follow the recommendations for cancer.

Remember: The World Health Organization and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) recommend exclusive breastfeeding for 6 months. Afterwards, breastfeeding should continue, along with complementary foods, for two years or longer.

All Types of Alcohol Linked to Breast Cancer Risk

A recent study by Kaiser Permanente Researchers has found that the effects of alcohol on breast cancer are the same, regardless of whether a woman drinks wine, beer, or liquor. The ethyl alcohol found in those drinks and the quantity consumed are the factors that weigh heavily on breast cancer risk. Researchers believe the increased risk from three or more drinks a day is similar to the increased breast cancer risk from smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or more. They claim that "Population studies have consistently linked drinking alcohol to an increased risk of female breast cancer, but until now there has been little data, most of it conflicting, about an independant role played by the choice of beverage type."

The team of Kaiser Permanente researchers studied the drinking habits of over 70,000 women of varying ethnicities who had supplied information during health exams between 1978 and 1985. By the year 2004, 2,800 of these women were diagnosed with breast cancer. Researchers analyzed three aspects of the records; they compared alcohol intake among women who favored specific beverages, the frequency of drinking each beverage type, and the role of total alcoholic intake compared with women who drank less than one drink a day.

The results found no difference among the varying types of alcoholic beverages, even when wine was divided into red and white. Researchers found the risk of breast cancer rose by 30 percent in women who drank more than three drinks a day. They claim that "We think that the heart protection benefit from alcohol is real, and is probably derived largely from alcohol-induced higher HDL or "good" cholesterol, reduced blood clotting and reduced diabetes." However, they warn "Our findings provide more evidence for why heavy drinkers should quit or cut down."