Breastfeeding Can Cut Cardiovascular Risk

Breastfeeding can reduce the risk of a heart attack or stroke later in life and could prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, researchers said on Friday.

Babies who are breastfed have fewer childhood infections and allergies and are less prone to obesity. British scientists have now shown that breastfeeding and slow grown in the first weeks and months of life has a protective effect against cardiovascular disease.

"Diets that promote more rapid growth put babies at risk many years later in terms of raising their blood pressure, raising their cholesterol and increasing their tendency to diabetes and obesity - the four main risk factors for stroke and heart attack," said Professor Alan Lucas of the Institute of Child Health in London.

"Our evidence suggests that the reason why breast-fed babies do better is because they grow more slowly in the early weeks."

Lucas said the effects of breastfeeding on blood pressure and cholesterol later in life are greater than anything adults can do to control the risk factors for cardiovascular disease, other than taking drugs.

An estimated 17 million people die of various disease, particularly heart attack and strokes, each year, according to the World Health Organisation.

Lucas and his colleagues compared the health of 216 teenagers who as babies had either been breastfed or given different nutritional baby formulas. They reported their findings in The Lancet medical journal.

The teenagers who had been breastfed had a 14-percent lower ratio of bad to good cholesterol and lower concentrations of a protein that is a marker for cardiovascular disease risk.

The researchers also found that regardless of the child's weight at birth, the faster the infants grew in the early weeks and months of life, the greater was their later risk of heart disease and stroke. The effect was the same for both boys and girls.

"The more human milk you have in the newborn period, the lower your cholesterol level is, the lower your blood pressure is 16 years later," Lucas said. [卫生类B]

译文：母乳喂养能够减少心血管疾病的危险

专家在周五说母乳喂养能够减少今后生活中出现心脏病和中风的可能，并且每年可以避免成千上万的死亡。

用母乳喂养的婴儿在童年比别的儿童更少感染疾病或过敏，并且更少肥胖。英国科学家目前指出，母乳喂养和在出生后的前几个星期和月份内生长缓慢可以起到避免心血管疾病的保护作用。

伦敦儿童卫生学院的阿兰·卢卡斯教授说：“促进快速生长的饮食会使婴儿在多年之后容易得血压高、胆固醇高、糖尿病及肥胖症——这是导致中风和心脏病的四个危险因素。”“我们的证据显示母乳喂养的孩子之所以更健康，是因为它们在生命的最初几个星期里生长得更慢。”卢卡斯说母乳喂养对今后生活中血压和胆固醇的作用比除吃药之外成年人为控制导致心血管病的因素而使用的任何方法都有效。

根据世界卫生组织报告，每年大约有1700万人死于心血管病，特别是心脏病和中风。

卢卡斯和他的同事比较了216个十几岁的青少年的健康状况，他们幼年时有的是母乳喂养的，有的食用的是营养配方奶粉。他们在兰斯特医学杂志上发表了他们的发现。

在坏胆固醇和好胆固醇的比例方面，吃母乳的青少年的比例低14％，并且他们的蛋白质积聚也比较低，而蛋白质积聚是导致心血管病的因素之一。

研究者还发现，不论孩子出生时的体重是多少，孩子在最初几个星期或几个月里长得越快，他们在今后的生活中的心脏病和中风的危险就越大。这种作用对男孩女孩都一样。

卢卡斯说：“在新生期间喝越多的人奶，16年后胆固醇水平和血压就越低。”[卫生类B]

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