PhD Mathematics Professor and Breastfeeding - Page 2

[MaryJaneLouise]

What about those ads?
One advertisement developed by the Ad Council to promote nursing had syringes next to bottles, to suggest that formula increased the risk for diabetes. Insulin injections are often used to treat type 1 diabetes, but type 2 is typically treated with drug therapy.

This is BS. There's lots of folks with Type 2 diabetes taking injectible insulin. I don't even have to look that one up.

But Type 1 diabetes is barely affected by nursing - the ads would have been misleading had they been aired. Should we blame the fact that they were pulled on pressure from industry interests? Perhaps the formula industry had the resources to look at the science and complain about a misleading public health message. But that doesn't make the government corrupt for pulling the ad - it misrepresented the science, and would have prompted a pointless guilt trip among an untold numbers of women who can't or don't want to nurse.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/en...ubmed_RVDocSum

Exp Clin Endocrinol Diabetes. 2007 Sep;115(8):502-8.
Early nutrition and risk of Type 1 diabetes mellitus--a nationwide case-control study in preschool children.
Rosenbauer J, Herzig P, Kaiser P, Giani G.

German Diabetes Clinic, German Diabetes Centre, Leibniz Centre at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Auf'm Hennekamp 65, 40221 Düsseldorf, Germany. [e-mail]

The evidence on the role of environmental factors in the development of type 1 diabetes is conflicting. Reducing potential bias and the variety of exposures we investigated the association between type 1 diabetes risk and nutritional and other environmental exposures in preschool children. This nationwide case-control study included 760 cases newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes under five years of age during 1992-1995. 630 controls of the same age were selected from the case families' acquaintance. Information on infant diet, foetal, perinatal and socio-economic factors, and family history of diabetes was obtained by a parent-administered questionnaire. Data were analysed by multiple unconditional logistic regression. Duration of breastfeeding and age at introduction of bottle-feeding were inversely associated with type 1 diabetes risk according to a dose-response relationship (trend test p<0.05). Adjusted odd ratios (95%-CI) for a short breastfeeding period and an early introduction of formula feeding (<5 vs. > or =5 months) were 1.31 (1.01-1.69) and 1.34 (1.03-1.74), respectively. Familial type 1 diabetes was found more frequently among diabetic than among control children. Higher social status, late introduction of solid food (> or =5 month), and higher current cow's milk consumption (> or =200 ml/d) were associated with a reduced diabetes risk. A considerable proportion of the diabetic risk among preschool children was explained by modifiable exposures. Our findings indicate that infant feeding is causally associated with type 1 diabetes risk and that a considerable part of new type 1 diabetic cases is potentially preventable.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/en...ubmed_RVDocSum

Acta Diabetol. 2007 Mar;44(1):14-9.Click here to read Links
Major childhood infectious diseases and other determinants associated with type 1 diabetes: a case-control study.
Tenconi MT, Devoti G, Comelli M, Pinon M, Capocchiano A, Calcaterra V, Pretti G; Pavia T1DM Registry Group.

Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Pavia, via Forlanini 2, I-27100, Pavia, Italy. [e-mail]

The objective of the study was to evaluate the association between infectious diseases and other events pertaining to childhood medical history and type 1 diabetes. A case-control study was carried out, taking as cases 159 type 1 diabetic patients (0-29 years) recorded from 1988 to 2000 within the population registry of the Pavia province (North Italy). As controls 318 non-diabetic subjects were matched by age and sex. A questionnaire was administered by standardised interviewers. Data were analysed by conditional logistic regression. Viral childhood diseases (OR 4.29; 95%CI 1.57-11.74) and bottle feeding (OR 1.83; 95%CI 1.08-3.09) were directly correlated to type 1 diabetes; an inverse correlation was found for vitamin D administration during lactation (0-14 years) (OR 0.31; 95%CI 0.11-0.86) and for history of scarlet fever in both sexes and age groups (OR 0.19; 95%CI 0.08-0.46). Most associations of the studied variables confirm already known findings. The significant inverse correlation of type 1 diabetes with scarlet fever history is a peculiar finding, the meaning of which is still obscure, although it has been recently described that streptococcal A infections are regulated by HLA class II alleles.

[Viola]

We all take risks -- we start by getting in the car in the morning (or walking or using public transportation in a polluted city). How big a risk is it not to nurse?

You know, this is true. And if this was about people willing to take calculated risks because they feel the potential outcome of artificial feeding is not outweighed by the benefits, I'm fine with that. I know people don't think breastfeeding is very important. I accept that. Some women will never want to breastfeed, period. I have no interest in manipulating the laws so that they can't use formula. But this way of framing this issue like it's breastfeeding exegesis/formula apologism misses the point. We don't need to set up formula feeding as under attack and talk about the ways it is better than breastfeeding while critiquing breastfeeding in the process. The point is that breastfeeding is the biological norm, regardless of whether it is the practice of the majority. So the treatment around breastfeeding should be seen as normal practice, not as some privilege or extra benefit an employer provides to breastfeeding mothers, or extra protections and rights that a breastfeeding woman gets that a formula feeding one does not.

We are still in a world where the reason a lot of women have issues and problems with breastfeeding is because it is not treated as normal, and there are so many ways that what is natural is sabatoged right from the beginning. Then it gets compounded because either as a society we don't want to spend resources to help women get breastfeeding as there is no profit in it, and not the same force lobbying in favor of it as lobby in favor of formula. Or we've become conditioned to seeing this as a feminist choice kind of issue where if we happen to speak out in favor of breastfeeding, we are seen as zealots who make people feel guilty. And even if people don't feel like it's a feminist issue, they'll paint it like that if it serves their side.

To myself I sound like a broken record on this topic, but I'll reiterate that in many cases women don't even realize how much of their choice about breastfeeding is taken away, if just in the hospital when health care professionals won't even respect the mother's right to breastfeed and to eschew formula. And then there are the many cases where breastfeeding in view of others is put forward as a public decency issue, and people decide that their right not to have to be in the room with a mother who might possibly be breastfeeding her infant is more important than the biological imperative of a mother feeding her child. Yet these limitations often don't extend to bottle using mothers.

[meowee]

I do agree with her, though, that at least in this country, it is difficult to know if the benefits of breastfeeding are purely chemical, or if they have more to do with socio-economic status and the intelligence of the mother (it's already been determined that breastfeeding mothers have higher IQs, and that the breastfed offspring's tendency for a higher IQ is genetic, not chemically induced by breastmilk). So I agree with her there.

But... I hate seeing these articles that act like formula feeding is "really okay." It will make women not even try to breastfeed.

[MaryJaneLouise]

I just hate the distortions of fact here, when something has clearly been linked. This one's a big duh.

I feel like a dog with a bone here; here's some older studies compiled by promom.org

Formula feeding increases risk of children developing diabetes
There are many studies linking development of insulin dependant Type I diabetes (formerly referred to as "juvenile diabetes") to lack of breastfeeding. The results of a study from Finland suggest that the introduction of dairy products at an early age, and high milk consumption during childhood increase the level of cow's milk antibodies in the children's systems. This factor is associated with an increased risk of insulin dependent diabetes. Now a new study has indicated that breastfeeding in infancy may help reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes. This sort of diabetes was formerly referred to as "adult onset" diabetes, but has been mysteriously occurring in more and more youngsters.

Young, T.K. et al. Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in children. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 2002; 156(7): 651-55

Gerstein HC. "Cow's milk exposure and type 1 diabetes mellitus". Diabetes Care. 1994;17:13-19

Virtanen et al: "Diet, Cow's milk protein antibodies and the risk of IDDM in Finnish children." Childhood Diabetes in Finland Study Group. Diabetologia, Apr 1994, 37(4):381-7

Virtanen SM, Rasanen L, Aro A, et al. "Infant feeding in Finnish children <7 yr of age with newly diagnosed IDDM" Diabetes Care, 1991;14:415-417

http://www.promom.org/101/index.html

[MaryJaneLouise]

Originally Posted by Viola

To myself I sound like a broken record on this topic, but I'll reiterate that in many cases women don't even realize how much of their choice about breastfeeding is taken away, if just in the hospital when health care professionals won't even respect the mother's right to breastfeed and to eschew formula. And then there are the many cases where breastfeeding in view of others is put forward as a public decency issue, and people decide that their right not to have to be in the room with a mother who might possibly be breastfeeding her infant is more important than the biological imperative of a mother feeding her child. Yet these limitations often don't extend to bottle using mothers.

Amen.

And if this woman wants to editorialize about how she PERSONALLY has examined the evidence, and doesn't see the risks in formula for her and her family, then that's fine. Just don't use your professional credentials to exaggerate, ignore and distort facts. She might know the technicalities of statistics, but there is a lot to medicine and epidemiology beyond just the technicalities.

Just because there isn't a single, large, double-blind placebo controlled study out there comparing formula feeding to exclusively BFing 6 months (then bfing beyond), doesn't mean that formula isn't harmful. There isn't one for smoking either, yet everybody now agrees that smoking is harmful. Yes, these cohort studies need to control for all the possible measurable factors that could affect the outcomes--things like socioeconomic status, mom's IQ, etc. But when done properly, you can do that. And most BFing studies have.

If there really wasn't any difference, then 50% of the studies would say FF is superior, 50% would say BF is superior. I can't think of a single study I've read where FFing is superior. The overall, total weight of the studies all say that FF is inferior. That's why multiple studies are important in a field like this..