Breast-Feeding May Protect Some Women Against Breast Cancer

Breast-feeding for more than six months appears to guard nonsmoking women against breast cancer for longer periods of time, a new study suggests. Smoking canceled the benefits of breast-feeding, but there was a decade of difference in diagnosis among nonsmoking breast cancer patients, depending on how long they breast-fed, the researchers reported. Nonsmokers who didn't breast-feed or did so for less than three months were diagnosed at an average age of 58, while women who didn't smoke and breast-fed longer than six months were diagnosed at an average age of 68. Those who breast-fed longer than six months but also smoked were diagnosed at an average age of 47. "Those women diagnosed with breast cancer who did not smoke and breast-fed for longer than six months were diagnosed much later -- an average of 10 years later," said study author Emilio Gonzalez-Jimenez, a researcher at the University of Granada in Spain. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_139777.html