A couple of breast-related news items caught my eye this week:
- A study led by a Harvard Medical School researcher found that women who had spent at least two years breastfeeding were 19 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack than those who hadn’t breastfed at all. Results were independent of any of the usual risk factors for heart disease. This may be because nursing “may help a mother’s metabolism switch from pregnancy mode back to normal.” The choice to breastfeed or not is a personal one, I believe, with no all-purpose right answer. For those who choose to do so, however, heart health could be a nice side effect.
- Those looking to care for their breasts, pregnant or not, may be interested in a study from the University of Wisconsin, which found that those who engaged in six or more hours per week of “strenuous recreational activity” may reduce the risks of invasive breast cancer by 23 percent.