How Does Breastfeeding Affect Your Chances of Developing Alzheimer's?

If I asked you how to reduce your risk for Alzheimer's disease, you might think of a healthy diet, physical exercise or mental exercise. But how many of you would suggest breastfeeding? Pretty unlikely- there's just not an obvious connection there. Newly published research, however, challenges that. The Journal of Alzheimer's Disease recently published a study that illustrates a connection between breastfeeding and a reduced rate of Alzheimer's disease. The researchers found that women who breastfed their babies had a lower chance of developing Alzheimer's, and those who breastfed for a longer time had an even lower rate of Alzheimer's. Interestingly, women with a higher ratio of months being pregnant compared to fewer months of breastfeeding showed a higher chance of developing Alzheimer's. Notably, one group of women- those with a family history of dementia- did not experience a decline in the rate of Alzheimer's disease regardless of the length of breastfeeding. The scientists theorize that there may be two possible explanations here. One relates to the amount of progesterone in a women's body, which is lowered while breastfeeding. Progesterone is thought to decrease the brain's resistance to Alzheimer's. The other theory points out that although pregnancy decreases the body's response to insulin, breastfeeding increases and restores the insulin response. This may be significant because in Alzheimer's disease, the brain develops a resistance to insulin; in fact, Alzhe...
Source: About Alzheimers Disease - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news