In a new study from UCLA Health, researchers found that women over the age of 50 who had breastfed their babies performed better on cognitive tests compared to women who had never breastfed.
The findings suggest that breastfeeding may have a positive impact on postmenopausal women’s cognitive performance and could have long-term benefits for the mother’s brain.
Cognitive health is critical for wellbeing in aging adults.
Yet, when cognition becomes impaired after the age of 50, it can be a strong predictor of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), the leading form of dementia and cause of disability among the elderly—with women comprising nearly two-thirds of Americans living with the disease.
Many studies also show that phases of a woman’s reproductive life-history, such as menstruation, pregnancy, breastfeeding and menopause can be linked to a higher or lower risk for developing depression or breast cancer, yet few studies have examined breastfeeding and its impact on women’s long-term cognition.
In the study, the researchers analyzed data collected from women participating in two clinical trials at UCLA Health.
Among the two trials, 115 women chose to participate, with 64 identified as depressed and 51 non-depressed. Importantly, none of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia, or other psychiatric diagnoses.
The team found that about 65% of non-depressed women reported having breastfed, compared to 44% of the depressed women.
All non-depressed participants reported at least one completed pregnancy compared to 57.8% of the depressed participants.
Results from the cognitive tests also revealed that those who had breastfed performed better in all four of the cognitive tests measuring for learning, delayed recall, executive functioning and processing compared to women who had not breastfed.
Separate analyses of the data for the depressed and non-depressed groups also found that all four cognitive domain scores were strongly linked to breastfeeding in the women who were not depressed.
But in the women who were depressed, only two of the cognitive domains—executive functioning and processing speed—were strongly linked to breastfeeding.
Interestingly, the researchers also found that longer time spent breastfeeding was linked to better cognitive performance. Women who had breastfed the longest had the highest cognitive test scores.
The team says future studies will be needed to explore the relationship between women’s history of breastfeeding and cognitive performance in larger, more geographically diverse groups of women.
If you care about Alzheimer’s disease, please read studies about this new drug may prevent Alzheimer’s disease effectively and safely and findings of your eyes can show early warning for Alzheimer’s disease.
For more information about Alzheimer’s and your health, please see recent studies about a simple tool to predict your risk of Alzheimer’s and results showing that a new early sign of Alzheimer’s in the brain.
The study is published in Evolution, Medicine and Public Health. One author of the study is Molly Fox, Ph.D.
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