Effect of Breastfeeding on the Risk of Developing Inflammatory Bowel Disease

Aim: This study aimed to investigate whether breastfeeding in early childhood affect the risk of devoloping inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Materials and Methods: The data of patients obtained from the survey were compared to the data of their non-IBD siblings as a control group. The relationship between the demographic and clinical chararecteristics of IBD patients and breastfeeding was also analyzed. Results: 304 IBD patients were included in the study. 182 (59.9%) of the patients were diagnosed with ulcerative colitis (UC), and 122 (40.1%) with Crohn’s disease (CD). The CD patients included in the study were compared to the CD siblings group of 332, and the UC patients compared with the UC siblings group of 508. Compared to the control groups, the proportion of those who never breastfed was higher in both the CD and UC groups (7.4% vs. 2.1% for CD [p=0.017] and 3.9% vs. 0.8% for UC [p=0.01]), and the risk of disease increased in those who was not breastfed (OR= 3.70 [1.35-10.16] for CD [p=0.017] and OR= 5.07 for UC [1.47-17.53] [p=0.010]). The protective effect against CD increased as the duration of breastfeeding increased, but that the protection increased with breastfeeding for up to 12 months for UC, and breastfeeding for more than 12 months did not provide additional protection. There was no relationship between breastfeeding and demographic and behavioral chracteristics of patients Conclusions: Not having been breastfed in infancy increases the risk of developing both UC and CD, and as the duration of breastfeeding increases, the protection against diseases risk increases.