Breast feeding is highly beneficial to mother's health

According to New York times a recent study shows that breast feeding is not only good for baby but for mama too.

"Women who have breast-fed are at lower risk than mothers who have not for developing high blood pressure, diabetes and cardiovascular disease decades later."

"The research, which is to be published in the May issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, analyzed data on some 139,681 women who had enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term national study of postmenopausal women."

"Women who reported a lifetime history of more than a year of breast-feeding were 20 percent less likely to have diabetes, 12 percent less likely to have hypertension, 19 percent less likely to have high cholesterol and 9 percent less likely to have had a heart attack or a stroke by the time they enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative."

" Other recent studies suggest nursing may also reduce the risk of osteoporosis, breast and ovarian cancer, and Type 2 diabetes."

The assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Eleanor Bimla Schwarz:

"We've known for a long time that it's important for the baby's health, but we now know it's important for mothers' health as well."

What Happy People Don't Do

Interesting article from the New York Times:

Although people who describe themselves as happy enjoy watching television, it turns out to be the single activity they engage in less often than unhappy people, said John Robinson, a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland and the author of the study,  which appeared in the journal Social Indicators Research.

While most large studies on happiness have focused on  the demographic characteristics of happy people - factors like age and marital status - Dr. Robinson and his colleagues  tried to identify what activities happy people engage in. The study relied primarily on the responses of 45,000 Americans collected over 35 years by the University of Chicago's General Social Survey, and on published "time diary" studies recording the daily activities of participants. 

"We looked at 8 to 10 activities that happy people engage in, and for one, the people who did the activities more - visiting others, going to church, all those things - were more happy, " Dr. Robinson said. "TV was the one activity that showed a negative relationship. Unhappy people did it more,  and happy people did it less."

To read the entire article please visit this link.