Breastfeeding is a natural way of nourishing infants and providing them with the necessary antibodies to fight off infections and reducing the risk of various types of cancers, obesity, diabetes, and asthma.

Researchers suggest that breastfeeding for a more extended period may have protective benefits for moms too, including reducing the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.

What is Rheumatoid Arthritis?

Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disorder that affects the joints, causing inflammation, pain, stiffness, and swelling of the joints. It’s an unpredictable disease that can affect various parts of the body and cause damage to internal organs.

Women are more likely to develop this condition than men, and its prevalence increases with age. There’s no cure for rheumatoid arthritis, and treatment involves controlling symptoms and slowing down disease progress.

What is Extended Breastfeeding?

Extended breastfeeding is when a mother breastfeeds her child beyond six months, and it can go up to two years or more.

Extended breastfeeding is common in many cultures, and the World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for at least six months and continued breastfeeding up to two years or beyond while supplementing with solid foods starting at six months.

Research on Rheumatoid Arthritis and Extended Breastfeeding

Multiple studies have examined the relationship between breastfeeding and rheumatoid arthritis and found that breastfeeding for longer durations may have some protective benefits against the development of rheumatoid arthritis.

Study 1: Women’s Health Study

The Women’s Health Study, which followed 120,000 registered nurses for over ten years, found that women who breastfed for a cumulative total of two or more years had a reduced risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis by up to 50% compared to women who breastfed for less than one year. This study adjusted for other variables that might have influenced the results, such as age, menopause status, smoking, and alcohol intake.

However, the study did not indicate a dose-response relationship between breastfeeding and rheumatoid arthritis risk, i.e., there was no clear-cut data to suggest that the longer the breastfeeding period, the lower the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis.

Study 2: Health Professionals Follow-up Study

The Health Professionals Follow-up Study followed over 30,000 men for over sixteen years and found that men who had breastfed children (as fathers) were 24% less likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis than those who had not.

Furthermore, men who had breastfed for longer than one month had a 50% lower risk of rheumatoid arthritis than those who had not breastfed. This study provides indirect evidence that breastfeeding can reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis and that the protective effect is not unique to women.

Study 3: Developmental Origins of Health and Disease

The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease study examined the effects of breastfeeding duration on the epigenetic mechanism of inflammation in adult men.

The findings showed that longer breastfeeding duration related to lower DNA methylation levels of inflammation genes. Specifically, DNA methylation is a type of epigenetic signature modification that could change gene expression. Also, the longer the breastfeeding duration, the lower the inflammatory response of the body in response to a bacterial challenge.

This study indicates that breastfeeding duration may have lasting effects on inflammatory status that could reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis later in life.

Limitations of the Studies

While the above studies demonstrate that there’s a protective effect of breastfeeding against rheumatoid arthritis development, there are some limitations to the studies.

There could still be some unmeasured or unknown confounding factors that influence the relationship between breastfeeding and rheumatoid arthritis risk, even though the studies tried to adjust for this possibility.
The studies relied on self-reported data, which could have measurement errors and recall bias, i.e., the mothers might not accurately recall breastfeeding duration or frequency, which could lead to under or overestimation of the protective effect of breastfeeding.
Finally, the studies’ results are not generalizable to all women since the study populations mainly included white women and may not apply to other ethnic groups.

Conclusion

In conclusion, there’s now ample evidence to suggest that extended breastfeeding can reduce the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, and the benefits may apply to men too.

It’s essential to remember that there are potential limitations to the studies, and more research is needed to confirm the findings and investigate the underlying mechanisms. Nevertheless, extended breastfeeding, which is already recommended for promoting infant health, might benefit maternal health as well.