THE ESSENTIAL
- Obesity is defined by a body mass index (BMI) equal to or greater than 30.0 kg/m².
- People suffering from overweight or obesity are more at risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (high blood pressure, myocardial infarction, heart failure, etc.).
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life. Breastfeeding has many health benefits for newborns, especially to prevent the risk of childhood diseases, according to the institution.
Low production of breast milk because of’obesity-related inflammation
In a recent study published in the scientific journal The Journal of NutritionUS researchers have observed that the chronic inflammation present in breastfeeding mothers with obesity can lead to lower breast milk production.
According to the authors, chronic inflammation in people affected by obesity begins in fat and spreads through the bloodstream to organs and body systems. As a reminder, fatty acids create the energy necessary for the proper functioning of the body. These molecules are also present in breast milk. But for scientists, inflammation linked to obesity has a negative impact on milk production by preventing the absorption of fatty acids in the milk-producing mammary glands.
Obesity: “fatty acids are not able to penetrate the mammary gland”
To test this hypothesis, researchers from Penn State and the University of Cincinnati (USA) examined data from previous work that recruited 23 mothers who had a very low milk production, 20 mothers who had a milk production moderate and 18 mothers who practiced exclusive breastfeeding. They then analyzed the profiles of fatty acids and inflammatory markers in the participants’ blood and breast milk.
Mothers with very low milk production had lower proportions of fatty acids in their breast milk compared to other volunteers. “Our study was one of the first to examine whether fatty acids in the blood also end up in breast milk. For exclusively breastfeeding women, the correlation was very high: most of the fatty acids that appeared in the blood were also present in breast milk. But for women who suffered from chronic inflammation and had difficulty producing milk, this correlation had almost completely disappeared. This is strong evidence that fatty acids are not in able to penetrate the mammary gland in women with chronic inflammation”said Rachel Walker, senior research author and postdoctoral fellow in nutrition sciences at Penn State.