Baby Formula Boosts Blood Pressure

 

                 Teens fed breast milk as babies have lower readings

 

                 By Adam Marcus,  HealthScout Reporter

 

                 THURSDAY, Feb. 8

                 (HealthScout) -- Premature babies who nurse on mother's milk have lower blood pressure as teens than those who get formula, report English researchers.

 

                 Their study of preemies shows that breast-fed infants grow up with markedly lower arterial and diastolic blood pressure -- the bottom half, or resting level, of the reading -- than babies fed formula.

 

                 Although the individual differences aren't staggering, the findings suggest that breast feeding could prevent tens of thousands of deaths yearly from heart disease and strokes in the United States alone. The findings appear in the Feb. 10 (2001)  issue of The Lancet.

 

                 Breast milk is known to help babies build defenses against infections and allergies, and even fend off chronic diseases like diabetes and cancers later in life.  Unlike formula, human milk is stocked with antibodiesagainst disease, as well as fatty acids, cholesterol and other building blocks of healthy development.

 

                 Dr. Susan Roberts, a Tufts University child nutrition specialist, says the healthful impact of breast-feeding on a baby can be a bonus for mom, too.

 

                 "Studies have shown that nursing mothers actually take  less time off from work than mothers who bottle-feed,  because their infants have fewer respiratory, ear and  intestinal diseases. I feel this is quite remarkable, given   that you would imagine that nursing mothers would like  to take more time off to keep [their] milk supply up,"   says Roberts, who wrote an editorial accompanying   the journal report.

 

                 The study, led by Dr. Alan Lucas of the Great Ormond  Street Hospital for Children in London, looked at the   effects of breast milk and infant formula on blood  pressure in 216 teenagers who had been born  prematurely at British clinics. At birth, the babies had been given donated breast milk, special formula for preemies or regular formula.

 

                 At ages 13 to 16, arterial blood pressure readings for the children fed pre-term formula averaged roughly 86 millimeters of mercury, compared with about 82  millimeters in the breast-milk group. For diastolic  pressure, the average was 65 millimeters vs. 62 millimeters. The two formula groups showed virtually   no differences in any blood pressure measures.

 

                 "Our data provide experimental evidence of  programming of a cardiovascular risk factor by early  diet and further support the long-term beneficial effects of breast milk," the researchers write.

 

                 Could lower rate by 17%

 

                 A 4 millimeters difference in blood pressure isn't huge, but the researchers say even a 2 millimeter drop in the  national average of diastolic pressure would lower the  incidence of high blood pressure in the United States by 17 percent.

 

                 That, in turn, would reduce the risk of heart disease by 6 percent and cut the number strokes of all kinds by 15  percent.

 

                 "I think it has a great possibility of being a real effect," says Dr. Ruth Lawrence, a pediatrician at the University of Rochester School of Medicine in New York. "Other studies looking at risk of cardiovascular disease comparing breast-fed and non-breast-fed children have suggested that human milk is protective."

 

                 Infant formula, which is modified cow's milk, was popular in this country in the 1940s and 1950s, says Lawrence, who also is a spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). Babies born then are now in their 50s and 60s and would be a good test population for the effects of infant meal plans on later-life health.

 

                 That work hasn't been done, she says. But a study of British men born in the 1920s and 1930s and followed into their 60s and 70s showed that those who had been breast fed for at least four months had a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks and strokes.

 

                 What To Do

 

                 The AAP recommends that infants be given breast milk exclusively for their first six months, and then be weaned gradually over the next six months.

 

                 "However good the intention of formula manufacturers, formula is a poor substitute for the intended [breast milk] food of human infants," says Roberts.

 

                 For more on the beneficial effects of nursing, try the National Library of Medicine. Learn more about breast milk from the American Dietetic Association.

 

                 Get the lowdown on blood pressure from the American Heart Association.