There's lots of evidence demonstrating that breastfeeding is good for the health of babies. Now, new research shows that, in certain cases, it can also be beneficial for the mom.
Women who suffer from multiple sclerosis are less likely to have a flare-up of their disease after pregnancy if they breastfeed, according to researchers at Stanford University in California.
For their study, they followed 32 women with MS, an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system attacks the protective coating on nerve fibres.
During pregnancy, the disease often goes into remission. Scientists believe pregnancy provides some protection against MS by dampening certain aspects of the immune system to allow the fetus - essentially a foreign object - to grow inside the mother.
But after childbirth, the mother is once again at an elevated risk for an MS attack, which can cause muscle weakness, reduced sensation, blurred vision and other symptoms.
Many doctors urge new moms to resume their MS-suppressing medications. But that means they can't breastfeed because the drugs end up in their milk and could be detrimental to infants.
The study was designed to compare MS patients who breastfed with those who didn't and observe how quickly they suffered a relapse. The women were observed for a year following childbirth.
About half the women did not breastfeed or began supplemental formula feeding within two months of giving birth. Of those, 87 per cent had a relapse soon after pregnancy compared with 36 per cent of MS patients who breastfed exclusively for at least two months.
"It turns out that the women who are going right back on medications [and not breastfeeding] are doing the worst. They are at the highest risk of relapse," said lead researcher Annette Langer-Gould.
The researchers aren't sure why breastfeeding helps guard against an MS relapse - or how long the protection might last. "We need do to a larger study to answer those questions," Dr. Langer-Gould said.
Even so, the findings, which will be presented in April at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, certainly cast doubt on the common advice of forgoing breastfeeding in order to start taking MS medications right after childbirth.
Cheap clinical trials
Major pharmaceutical companies are conducting more and more clinical trials in developing countries, raising ethical and scientific questions about the practice, according to a report in this week's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, N.C., reviewed 300 studies that appeared in three leading medical journals between 1995 and 2005. During that decade, the number of studies based on clinical trials carried out in developing countries doubled, while the number in the United States and Western Europe steadily declined.
One reason for the change is cost. "The cost per participant in a clinical trial in India, for example can be only one-tenth of what it is in the U.S.," explained Seth Glickman, the senior author of the report.
But he noted that drug regulatory authorities in Western nations are less able to monitor trials properly in distant developing countries. "We know little about the conduct and quality of research in countries that have relatively little clinical research experience," he and his colleagues warned in their report.
What's more, the Duke researchers questioned whether the results from these studies are even applicable to people living in developed nations. "Geographically distinct populations can have different genetic profiles, and these differences have been shown to be related to the safety and effectiveness of drugs and even medical devices," they wrote.
Vaccine book tour shelved
The debate over childhood vaccinations has taken a nasty turn. A leading pediatrician who wrote a book defending vaccinations says he has been getting death threats from vaccine opponents.
Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, is the author of the recently released book, Autism's False Prophets . The work, which uses layman's language to debunk claims that childhood vaccinations can cause autism, has won praise from public health experts. But it seems the debate is unlikely to end any time soon - even though a U.S. court concluded last week that vaccines are not to blame for the disorder.
Dr. Offit has shelved plans for a public book tour because of the death threats.
"I'll speak at a conference, say to nurses," he said in an interview with The New York Times. "But I wouldn't go into a bookstore and sign books. It can get nasty. There are parents who really believe that vaccines hurt their children, and to them, I'm incredibly evil. They hate me."
In an interview with Reuters, he recalled a telephone conversation with an anonymous caller who claimed to know where his children go to school. "And then he hung up. That scared me."
