Could Breastfeeding Lower Asthma, Eczema Risk?

An intervention promoting prolonged and exclusive breastfeeding could help to reduce the risk of atopic eczema in adolescence, according to the results of a recent study.

Atopic diseases, including asthma and atopic eczema, are the most common chronic conditions in childhood. In order to examine whether breastfeeding could play a role in the lowering of atopic disease risk, researchers conducted a follow-up study using data from the Promotion of Breastfeeding Intervention Trial (PROBIT), a cluster randomized trial involving 17,046 healthy term infants from June 1996 to December 1997.
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Overall, 13,557 participants were followed up from September 2012 to July 2015. In the intervention group, 0.3% (21 of 7064) had flexural eczema and forced expiratory volume in the first second of expiration/forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC) ratio z score was −0.10 (1.82), compared with 0.7% (43 of 6493) and 0.35 (1.34), respectively, in the control group.

The researchers observed a 54% lower risk of flexural eczema in the treatment group, compared with the control group, when conducting a modified intention-to-treat analysis. Self-reported flexural eczema symptoms, asthma, and wheezing in the past year were less frequent in the intervention group compared with the control group, however the researchers noted that 95% confidence intervals were wide and included the null. There was no significant difference in FEV1/FVC ratio z score between the groups.

“A breastfeeding promotion intervention reduced flexural dermatitis risk but had no detectable effect on lung function or questionnaire-derived measures of atopic eczema or asthma in adolescence in a setting where atopic eczema and allergies are rare,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Flohr C, Henderson J, Kramer MS, et al. Effect of an intervention to promote breastfeeding on asthma, lung function, and atopic eczema at age 16 years. JAMA Pediatr. 2018;172(1):e174064.