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. 2023 Jun 16;15(12):2780.
doi: 10.3390/nu15122780.

Full Breastfeeding and Allergic Diseases-Long-Term Protection or Rebound Effects?

Lars Libuda  1   2 , Birgit Filipiak-Pittroff  2   3 , Marie Standl  4   5 , Tamara Schikowski  6 , Andrea von Berg  3 , Sibylle Koletzko  7   8 , Carl-Peter Bauer  9 , Joachim Heinrich  5   10   11 , Dietrich Berdel  3 , Monika Gappa  2
Affiliations

Full Breastfeeding and Allergic Diseases-Long-Term Protection or Rebound Effects?

Lars Libuda et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

A previous follow-up of the GINIplus study showed that breastfeeding could protect against early eczema. However, effects diminished in adolescence, possibly indicating a "rebound effect" in breastfed children after initial protection. We evaluated the role of early eczema until three years of age on allergies until young adulthood and assessed whether early eczema modifies the association between breastfeeding and allergies. Data from GINIplus until 20-years of age (N = 4058) were considered. Information on atopic eczema, asthma, and rhinitis was based on reported physician's diagnoses. Adjusted Odds Ratios (aOR) were modelled by using generalized estimating equations. Early eczema was associated with eczema (aORs = 3.2-14.4), asthma (aORs = 2.2-2.7), and rhinitis (aORs = 1.2-2.7) until young adulthood. For eczema, this association decreased with age (p-for-interaction = 0.002-0.006). Longitudinal models did not show associations between breastfeeding and the respective allergies from 5 to 20 years of age. Moreover, early eczema generally did not modify the association between milk feeding and allergies except for rhinitis in participants without family history of atopy. Early eczema strongly predicts allergies until young adulthood. While preventive effects of full breastfeeding on eczema in infants with family history of atopy does not persist until young adulthood, the hypothesis of a rebound effect after initial protection cannot be confirmed.

Keywords: GINIplus; allergy prevention; atopic diseases; breastfeeding; early nutrition; long-term effects; rebound.

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Conflict of interest statement

L.L. is member of the German National Breastfeeding Committee. A.v.B. has received speakers’ fees from Nestlé Nutrition Institute. The Research Institute at the Marien-Hospital has received a grant from Nestlé Vevey, Switzerland. S.K. received research support from BioGaia, Mead Johnson and Nestec Nutrition, and received honoraria or consultant fees from Abbvie, BerlinChemie, Celgene, Danone, Janssen, Mead Johnson, Nestlé, Pharmacosmos, Pfizer, Takeda, Vifor. M.G. received research funding from Boehringer and Nestlé Vevey, Switzerland; and received honoraria for lectures and consultant fees from ALK, Astra Zeneca, Boehringer, Chiesi, GSK, HAL, Novartis, Omron, Pari and Sanofi/Regeneron.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Prevalence of allergic diseases from childhood to young adulthood stratified by eczema during the first 3 years for (a) the intervention cohort, (b) the non-intervention cohort with family risk of atopy and (c) the non-intervention cohort without family risk of atopy.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Prevalence of allergic diseases from childhood to young adulthood by eczema during the first three years and feeding groups (a) in the intervention-cohort stratified for the full breastfeeding group (FB) and for the four groups supplemented only with their randomized formula, (b) in the non-intervention-cohort with family risk (FH+) and (c) without risk (FH−) both cohorts stratified by full breastfeeding.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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