Systematic review: infant breastfeeding and later overweight/obesity HUANG Lin.

Objective To investigate the correlation between infant breastfeeding and later overweight /obesity in childhood and adolescence. Methods Using electronic databases : CINHAL, Medline , EMbase , Pubmed and Cochrane Library to search relevant studies. In addition , references within the studies and previous reviews were retrieved. The search was restricted to English language publications during the period 1990 ∼ 2008. Results Overall, 17 studies were identified. The majority (58. 8% ) of the studies reported the protective effect of breastfeeding against later overweight/obesity. Of those , 6 studies concluded a dose-response relationship between reduced risk of obesity/overweight and the duration of breastfeeding. However, the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Conclusion The outcomes of previous research are contradicted. Regardless of the contribution of breastfeeding to lower risk of overweight/obesity , breastfeeding needs to be encouraged and supported on a globe scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]