Breast cancer is the leading killer of women ages 35 to 54 worldwide. More than a million developed the disease without knowing it, and almost 500,000 women die from it every year. In Asia, the Philippines has the highest incidence rate of breast cancer and is considered to have the ninth highest incidence rate in the world today.Approximately 70 percent of breast cancers occur in women with none of the known risk factors. Only about five percent of breast cancer was one in 22. Today, it is one in eight.
With the prevalence of breast cancer consistently rising for the past 30 years, particularly in developing countries, supposed authorities in the field are baffled why.
A study by the Cancer Research UK did find a significant explanation.
Using detailed analysis of 47 published studies with nearly 150,000 participants from 30 countries, researchers found that the increase in disease in western countries is due to women having fewer children and breastfeeding for shorter periods of time.
This conclusion reinforces the long held view that hormonal and reproductive factors are vital in the development of breast cancer.
In a 1996 study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology entitled “Evidence of Protective Effect of Lactation on Risk of Breast Cancer in Young Women,” the risk of breast cancer decreases with increasing duration of lifetime lactation experience. Three years later,
How do these “decreased risks” and “strong influence” translate in numbers?
According to P. Newcomb whose research was printed in the New England Medicinal Journal, women who breastfeed for at least four months reduce their risk for breast cancer by 11 percent. If they breastfeed longer, the incidence might be reduced by nearly 25 percent.
In fact, J Freudenheim’s 1994 study on “Exposure to breast milk in infancy and the risk of breast cancer” went on to conclude that women who were breastfed as infants have 25 percent lowered risk in developing breast cancer compared to women who were bottle-fed as babies.
Early this year, doctors and researchers fro the University of Southern California presented during the annual meeting their study on the protective effects of breastfeeding, particularly with late pregnancies. It suggested that breastfeeding reduces the risk of developing both the common and rarer form of breast cancer even as women choose to delay pregnancies 25 years old.
The country’s 2003 National Demographic Health Survey shows that in the Philippines the breastfeeding rates are at dangerously low levels. In fact, only 16.1 percent are exclusively breastfed for four to five months of age and 13 percent of Filipino babies were never breastfed at all.
The Department of Health, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, have all called on a renewed breastfeeding culture as a result of these alarming statistics.
Breastfeeding is known to provide superior and long-term health benefits for babies. It also provides health advantages to women. Apart from reducing the risk of breast cancer, breastfeeding also decreases the chances for uterine, ovarian, and endometrial cancer. Women are also less likely to suffer from osteoporosis with breastfeeding.
Source: Philippine Star
Not all the properties of breast milk are understood, but its nutrient content is relatively stable. Breast milk is made from nutrients in the mother's bloodstream and bodily stores. Breast milk has just the right amount of fat, sugar, water, and protein that is needed for a baby's growth and development.Because breastfeeding uses an average of 500 calories a day it helps the mother lose weight after giving birth.The composition of breast milk changes depending on how long the baby nurses at each session, as well as on the age of the child. The quality of a mother's breast milk may be compromised by smoking, alcoholic beverages, caffeinated drinks, marijuana, methamphetamine, heroin, and methadone.
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