Babies who breastfeed longer have less risk of becoming obese adults

Rafael Pérez-Escamilla, professor of public health at Yale University (USA), has been analyzing the health benefits of breastfeeding for many years.

“The complexity of breast milk is unmatched and we are just beginning to understand it,” he says.

“There are dozens of different compounds that have a concentration that changes with the age of the child.

And it also changes during the suckling episode.

At the beginning, there is much more water and at the end there is more fat, and this signal is what helps children to regulate their appetite.

That is very difficult to match for infant formulas”, explains the Mexican scientist.

In a recent review of studies, Pérez-Escamilla and colleagues have concluded that longer periods of breastfeeding reduce the risk of babies becoming overweight or obese later in life.

The benefits of breastfeeding in the prevention of obesity have been observed in a number of epidemiological studies, which have also identified immunological benefits of breastfeeding.

"When the baby breastfeeds, the immune system of the mother and the baby communicate in a unique way and breast milk becomes a personalized medicine," she adds.

Also, when the baby feeds directly from the mother, he is less likely to overeat, because when she is no longer hungry he stops sucking the milk.

When they are bottle-fed, they are more likely to be pushed to finish it and the learning value of appetite regulation is lost.

The WHO recommends that the baby be put to the breast within the first hour after birth,

Despite the accumulation of information on the benefits of prolonging breastfeeding to prevent obesity, it is not easy to identify the mechanisms that explain why it happens or even separate the effects of breastfeeding itself from others that may be associated;

when a mother can breastfeed her child for a year and a half, she may have other conditions that help prevent her from becoming overweight.

For this reason, it is important to understand the mechanisms that would explain the protective effect of breastfeeding against obesity and that is what a group of researchers from the Physiopathology of Obesity and Nutrition Network Biomedical Research Center (CIBEROBN) has tried to do. ),

"There are quite a few studies in recent years in which the relationship between prolonged breastfeeding and protection against obesity and other pathologies has been observed," says Luisa Seoane, leader of the work that has just been published in the journal

.

"A relationship has also been seen between the weight of the mother and her nutrition, even before pregnancy, and the weight of the child at birth or her body composition," she adds.

“But human studies are very difficult, you can't control everything.

To do this we have designed an animal model, with mice, in which we control everything from genetics to physical activity or what they eat”, she continues.

“Thus, we managed to see the mechanisms associated solely and exclusively with the effect of breastfeeding”, she indicates.

The study authors noted that one of the factors explaining the phenomenon is the release of a protein known as FGF21 from the liver.

This protein then reaches the hypothalamus, a region where appetite and energy use in the body are regulated.

In addition, this activation increases the activity of brown fat, related to greater energy consumption.

“What we have seen in animals is not that they eat less.

The amount of food is maintained, but they spend more fat.

In animals with very prolonged lactation, brown fat is highly activated and this is one of the reasons that explains the higher energy consumption with the same activity.

In addition, white fat is transformed into brown fat, increasing the effect”, says Seoane.

Those responsible for the study now want to study whether the changes observed are the result of milk or also have to do with breastfeeding and spending more time with the mother.

"We want to see if we can develop these targets for therapeutic purposes," explains Seoane.

It is known that in adulthood, maintaining brown fat activity reduces the incidence of diabetes or cardiovascular disease.

"Since only exposure to cold has been proven effective in increasing brown adipose tissue activity in adults, the idea of ​​extending the duration of lactation to stimulate brown adipose tissue activity during adulthood is interesting," the authors write. from the article.

Despite the accumulation of evidence on the benefits of prolonging breastfeeding, experts recognize the difficulties in applying this knowledge.

“Breastfeeding for at least two years is easy to say, but my message is that the longer it is done, the more the children and the mothers will benefit,” says Pérez-Escamilla.

"The longer duration of breastfeeding benefits babies, but it is also associated with a lower incidence of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, hypertension or cardiovascular diseases," concludes the Yale scientist.

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