Breastfeeding in Infancy Is Not Associated with Inflammatory Status in Healthy Adolescents

Abstract

It has been suggested that breast-feeding (BF) may be associated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease in adulthood. A low-grade inflammation is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, even in apparently healthy children. The objective of this study was to assess the potential modulating effect of BF on the inflammatory status of healthy adolescents. Information on BF (duration) was obtained from parental records in 484 of 1040 healthy European urban adolescents (56.4% females) that had a blood sample obtained as part of the Healthy Lifestyle in Europe by Nutrition and Adolescence study. Blood serum inflammatory markers were measured, including high sensitivity C-reactive protein, complement factors 3 and 4, ceruloplasmin, adhesion molecules (L-selectin and soluble endothelial selectin, soluble vascular cell adhesion molecule 1, and intercellular adhesion molecule 1), cytokines, TGFβ1, and white blood cells. After univariate analysis, a propensity score, including the potential confounding factors, was computed and used to assess the association between BF and selected inflammatory markers. BF was not significantly associated with any of the selected inflammatory markers after adjustment for gender and propensity score. In our study, BF was not associated with low-grade inflammatory status in healthy adolescents, suggesting that the potential cardiovascular benefits of BF are related to other mechanisms than modulation of inflammation or might become relevant at a later age. Groups at high risk for cardiovascular disease should be a target for further research concerning the effects of BF.

Cardiovascular risk markers until 12 mo of age in infants fed a formula supplemented with bovine milk fat globule membranes

“…Innate immune responses differ between breast-fed and formula-fed infants during the first month of life (39). Later differences in systemic inflammatory parameters have only been shown in selected groups; breast feeding was associated with higher CRP in adolescents in a follow-up study on preterm infants (9) but not in another study on term infants (40). In this study, we observed no differences in hsCRP between the EF and SF groups.…”

Association of Exclusive Breastfeeding Duration With Systemic Inflammation Markers in Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study

“…However, the influence of breastfeeding duration on obesity-related inflammation is still controversial (Labayen et al, 2012;Singhal et al, 2004;Vérier et al, 2011). In this regard, our results show no significant association between BMI in adolescents and breastfeeding duration in their infancy.…”

“…Socioeconomic status and educational level of the parents are also related to inflammation in adolescents (Chiang et al, 2015). The inclusion of these variables as confounders in their analysis might be why Vérier et al (2011) did not find an association between breastfeeding and inflammation. We did not include socioeconomic status (the data were unavailable) in our analyses in the present study, but we did include maternal educational level.…”

“…Causal relationships are difficult to detect because prospective studies are impractical to carry out due to ethical reasons, so knowledge is usually gathered from cross-sectional studies. Vérier et al (2011) stratified 484 healthy adolescents from diverse European origins according to breastfeeding duration and failed to find an association between breastfeeding duration and inflammatory status except for a slight difference in high-sensitivity CRP and L-selectin levels between subjects who had never been breastfed and those who received maternal milk for more than 6 months. The discrepancy between their results and ours may be a consequence of differences in sample size, population characteristics or the number of subjects with extended lactation, which was high in our study.…”

Protective Effect of Breastfeeding on the Adverse Health Effects Induced by Air Pollution: Current Evidence and Possible Mechanisms

“…Breastfeeding exclusivity was also inversely associated with gut inflammation in infants [111]. Moreover, the anti-inflammatory effect of breastfeeding may persist into adolescence [112] and adulthood [113,114], independent of other risk factors; however, not every study found this association [115,116].…”