Friday, May 16, 2008

one less thing to worry about

New research at Malmö University Hospital (Sweden) has revealed that mothers who have more children and especially those who breastfeed their babies have a significantly lowered risk of arthritis later in life. Researcher Dr. Mitra Pikwer found that breastfeeding for more than a year reduced women's risk of rheumatoid arthritis 54% and breastfeeding for at least a month tended to reduce the risk 26 percent. Moreover, women who gave birth to more children tended to be at lower RA risk, with a 13% reduction for each child they had. ...there was no evidence of benefits in RA from the use of oral contraceptives, which contain some of the same hormones that are elevated during pregnancy. (LifeSiteNews.com)

2 comments:

Karen said...

Gee, with #13 coming, I guess I am on the up side and then some, LOL.

Michelle said...

This is very interesting. My mom has tested positive for extremely high levels of whatever they test to diagnose RA, but has no (or very mild) symptoms (her grandfather had RA, maybe even her dad). She wasn't able to breastfeed, but she did have 5 kids.