Breast really is best

FOUR extra points of IQ, an extra year’s education and a significantly enhanced income at the age of 30. Those are the benefits of having been breast-fed, according a study just published in Lancet Global Health by Bernardo Horta of the Federal University of Pelotas, in Brazil, and his colleagues.

Previous research has suggested that breast-feeding has beneficial long-term effects. But Dr Horta’s work is particularly persuasive because it looks at adults rather than children and teenagers, and because it contradicts the suggestion that social class is a confounding variable, with rich mothers tending to breast-feed more than poor mothers do.