Bristol - Thousands of lives a year could be saved if more mothers chose to breast-feed their babies, according to research recently presented by the University of Bristol.
University scientists measured the blood pressure of 4 763 seven-year-old children to see if those who had been breast-fed did better those those who were bottle-fed.
They found that those 34 percent of babies who were breast-fed beyond the age of two months on average had a blood pressure one millimetre of mercury lower than children brought up exclusively on formula milk.
The longer that a child was breast-fed, the bigger the difference in their blood pressure, which contributes to heart attacks, the researchers reported.
Dr Richard Martin, from the university's Department of Social Medicine, said that although the difference was quite small, it could still have important health implications.
The study, published in Circulation, the journal of the American Heart Association, pointed out that it was estimated that a one percent reduction in blood pressure across the population could reduce the death rate by 1.5 percent - or preventing around 2 000 premature deaths a year in Britain.
"Around 40 percent of all infants in the USA or UK are never breast-fed," Dr. Martin said. "If breastfeeding rose from 60 percent to 90 percent, approximately 3 000 deaths a year may be prevented among 35- to 64-year-olds."
The research, conducted as part of the "Children of the 90s" project, suggested that the benefits of breast-feeding on blood pressure could be even more pronounced as the children grew up into adulthood.
While many of the benefits of breast-feeding are well-known, it is unclear whether it is linked to a decreased risk of heart disease in later life and why this might be so.
Last November, researchers writing in the British Medical Journal said the beneficial effects of breast-feeding on blood pressure later in life may have been overestimated. Many studies have reported significant differences in blood pressure between those people who were breast-fed and those given formula milk.
But researchers from St George's Hospital Medical School in London said many of these studies were conducted using relatively small samples, raising the possibility of bias in the results.
There is also a conflicting debate about the effectiveness of breast-feeding in reducing obesity in later life. Researchers are split on whether mother's milk may help protect children against becoming overweight, compared with those who are bottle-fed. - Sapa-DPA