Breast feeding moms have less arthritis

MALMO , Sweden, May 13 (UPI) -- Swedish researchers found women who breast feed more than 13 months were half as likely to get rheumatoid arthritis.

Those who had breast fed for one to 12 months were 25 percent less likely to get the disease.

The study, published online ahead of print in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, also found taking oral contraceptives -- suspected to protect against the disease because they contain hormones that are raised in pregnancy -- did not have the same effect. Similarly, being pregnant -- but not breast feeding -- did not seem to have a protective effect either.

The authors said that it was difficult to say whether there was a connection between higher rates of breast feeding and a corresponding fall in the number of women affected by rheumatoid arthritis, but that the results of the study provided yet another reason why women should breast feed.

Study leader Dr. M. Pikwer of The Malmo University Hospital, in Sweden compared 136 women with rheumatoid arthritis with 544 women of a similar age without the disease.