Longer exclusive breastfeeding may lower risk for childhood hematologic cancers

Exclusive breastfeeding duration of at least three months may decrease the risk for childhood hematologic cancers, according to a study published online March 26 in JAMA Network Open.

Signe Holst Søegaard, Ph.D., from the Danish Cancer Society in Copenhagen, and colleagues investigated whether longer duration of exclusive breastfeeding is associated with a decreased risk for childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and other childhood cancers. The analysis included administrative data for 309,473 children born between January 2005 and December 2018, identified from the Danish National Child Health Register.

The researchers found that compared with exclusive breastfeeding duration of less than three months, exclusive breastfeeding for at least three months was associated with a decreased risk for hematologic cancers (adjusted hazard ratio , 0.66; 95 percent confidence interval , 0.46 to 0.95), which was largely attributable to a decreased risk for B-cell precursor ALL (BCP-ALL; aHR, 0.62; 95 percent CI, 0.39 to 0.99).

The researchers found that compared with exclusive breastfeeding duration of less than three months, exclusive breastfeeding for at least three months was associated with a decreased risk for hematologic cancers

There were no associations between breastfeeding duration and risk for central nervous system tumors (aHR, 0.96; 95 percent CI, 0.51 to 1.88) or solid tumors (aHR, 0.87; 95 percent CI, 0.55 to 1.41).

“This finding is consistent with emerging investigations implicating early gut microbiome maturation in childhood BCP-ALL pathogenesis,” the authors write. “To inform future preemptive interventions, additional studies should investigate the biologic mechanisms underlying the observed association.”

More information on link between breastfeeding and childhood hematologic cancers

More information: Signe Holst Søegaard et al, Exclusive Breastfeeding Duration and Risk of Childhood Cancers, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3115

Helen D. Bailey, Exploring Exclusive Breastfeeding and Childhood Cancer Using Linked Data, JAMA Network Open (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.3075

Journal information: JAMA Network Open

This article was first published here. You can read the original article in full here.

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