Study | Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months reduces the risk of Crohn’s

Study | Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months reduces the risk of Crohn’s
Study | Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months reduces the risk of Crohn’s

Children who are exclusively breastfed for the first six months of their life are then at less risk of suffering from Crohn’s disease, Montreal researchers have found.


Posted at 7:07 a.m.

Jean-Benoit Legault

The Canadian Press

On the other hand, the risk would be increased by the early introduction of solid foods between the third and sixth months of life.

“We observed a very clear trend towards a reduction in the risk of Crohn’s disease in subjects who had breast milk exclusively for at least six months,” summarized the first author of the study, doctoral student Canisius Fantodji.

If these results are consistent with what is already found in the scientific literature, he added, it would be the very first time that we have found that early introduction of solid foods increases the risk of Crohn’s disease.

“This is an innovative result which will open up new avenues as to the origin of these inflammatory bowel diseases,” said Mr. Fantodji.

However, exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life would have no impact on the risk of another inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis.

The use of antibiotics during the first six months of life was associated, in this study, with a reduced risk of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The authors of the study admit that this result is a little discordant compared to the scientific literature, and other studies will be necessary to see more clearly.

Exposure to second-hand smoke during this period has also been associated with a 23% increase in the risk of Crohn’s disease, especially in adulthood. Exposure to second-hand smoke is known to increase the risk of smoking later in life, and about a fifth of the increase in this increased risk of Crohn’s disease was attributed to the fact that study participants were now smokers.

Inflammatory diseases affect approximately one in a hundred Canadians, recalled Doctor Prévost Jantchou of CHU Sainte-Justine, and the challenge is to find not only therapies that are able to help patients, but also “preventive approaches”.

“The central crux of this work is that everything takes hold in the first three years of life,” said Dr. Jantchou. Our hypothesis was that everything that happens between birth (and the third birthday) can have an influence. »

Microbiome intestinal

Approximately a thousand people registered with the Régie de l’assurance- santé du Québec and having requested care for Crohn’s disease, and some 600 others suffering from ulcerative colitis agreed to participate in this study.

About a thousand other people suffering from neither problem served as a control group, explained Marie-Claude Rousseau of the National Institute of Scientific Research.

“We have 2,700 participants who agreed to answer a questionnaire, either online or on the phone,” she said. And for this study, only a very small part of the gold mine of information that we collected was analyzed. »

Researchers note that all of these factors, from breastfeeding to second-hand smoke, are likely to influence the composition of the gut microbiome, whose impact on multiple facets of health is increasingly fascinating to the medical community.

“The first three years of life,” added Mr. Fantodji, “is the period during which everything falls into place on the immune level and especially on the level of the intestinal microbiome. »

The intestinal microbiome is a major player in the manifestation of these diseases, confirmed Dr. Jantchou, and several animal models have demonstrated that a dysfunction of the microbiome can cause an excessive reaction of the immune system.

These results are all the more important, added Mr. Fantodji, as inflammatory bowel diseases remain “incurable” for the moment.

While some have been shown to have a greater genetic susceptibility than others, there is currently very little information regarding modifiable risk factors, he said.

And the impact of this study could go beyond inflammatory bowel diseases alone, predicted Dr. Jantchou.

“Studies like this around modifiable factors can lead to recommendations […] for other diseases in which the microbiome will intervene, emerging autoimmune diseases such as asthma and eczema,” he concluded.

The findings of this study were published by the medical journal Digestive and Liver Disease.

-

-

PREV Series: “In the Boots of Lucky Luke”, the reality as well as the myth
NEXT The Pope hopes that COP29 will be effective in protecting the common Home