Recent research shows that women who breastfeed their children may have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
A team of scientists from Australia has analyzed a sample of more than 53 thousand women over 45 years and conclude that each year of breastfeeding is associated with a 14% lower risk of diabetes.
For the study, cases of women without children were analyzed for the first time and the risk of developing diabetes in these women was compared with the risk of women who have children and do not breastfeed and that of women with children who do breastfeed. Apparently, women who have children are 50% more at risk of type 2 diabetes than women who have not been mothers (we recently saw that having children was beneficial in case of cancer and now we see that, if we talk about diabetes, it is worse to have children than not to have them).
However, that risk did not increase in women who had breastfed their children for at least three months. That is, having children increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the future, but breastfeeding reduces that risk by making women who breastfeed have the same risk as women who do not have children.
The reason for this benefit is unknown, although it is suggested that hormonal changes produced by breastfeeding would have a lasting effect on how the body processes glucose in the blood.
