lthough
bone disease due to decreased bone mineralization is common among
preterm infants, this retrospective study explores the bone growth
and mineralization at the age of 5 years in infants born preterm,
and assigned different type of milks as supplements to their own
mother's milk during early weeks post partum. Fifty-four children
averaging 5 years, who had received preterm infant formula or
banked pasteurized donor human milk as supplement to their own
mother's milk during their early weeks were tested for bone mineral
content. This study concluded that the greater the intake of human
milk, the higher the later bone mineral content, suggesting that
the early nutritional environment of preterm infants plays an
important role in long term bone growth and mineralization. Two
mechanisms for this are proposed. Firstly, that early mineral
depletion "programmes" preterm infants to conserve bone
mineral and to limit growth to a time when mineral intakes are
normal when increased growth can occur. The second possibility
is that one or more of the growth hormones present in the donor
milk survives pasteurization and is active in producing the higher
bone mineralization. The authors recommend further studies on
the impact of diet in early life to determine long term effects
such as the propensity to develop diseases such as osteoporosis.
he widespread
use of pacifiers, both in developing countries and in industrialized
counties has led to broad concerns regarding "nipple confusion",
decreased lactation and early weaning from the breast. Since decreased
breastfeeding correlates with increased infant mortality in poor
societies, these researchers felt a need to determined the relationship
between the use of pacifiers and breastfeeding duration. This
longitudinal study followed 605 infants born in Sao Paulo, Brazil
from the age of 1 month to 6 months to determine the duration
of breastfeeding. Results showed that non-users of pacifiers were
more likely to breastfeed exclusively. Increased use of pacifiers
at 1 month increased the risk for being weaned by 4 months. The
authors suggest that pacifiers should not be used for breastfed
infants.
reast
cancer rates in most Asian counties, although traditionally lower
than Western countries, are experiencing a marked increase in
recent years. This large Japanese study, to elucidate the variousrisk
factors of breast cancer according to pre or post-menopausal status
used self-administered questionnaires to collect data from 37,882
hospital patients between 1988 to 1992. The case group consisted
of 1,186 women with breast cancer, and 23,163 free from cancer
were selected as the control group. A number of factors such as
diet, physical activity, family history, smoking and drinking
were studied. The researchers found a statistically significant
protective effect of lactation for premenopausal women who breastfed
more than 6 months.