ArticleNutrients2020
Association between Breastfeeding and DNA Methylation over the Life Course: Findings from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC).
Article in Nutrients, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Breastfeeding association with DNA methylation in the pregnancy and childhood epigenetics (PACE) consortium.Clinical epigenetics · 2026Pooled it
- Intake of mother's milk by very-low-birth-weight infants and variation in DNA methylation of genes involved in neurodevelopment at 5.5 years of age.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2022Trial
- Epigenome-Wide Association of Infant Feeding and Changes in DNA Methylation from Birth to 10 Years.Nutrients · 2020Trial
- Differential Methylation by Early Life Adversity in the Future of Families Child Wellbeing Study.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Breastfeeding in Infancy and Adult Health: A Narrative Review.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Effects of Maternal Peanut Intake and Breastfeeding Duration on Offspring DNA Methylation.Food science & nutrition · 2025Article
- Article
- Maternal Nutrition, Toxicants, and Epigenetic Programming of Obesity Across Generations.Diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity : targets and therapy · 2025Review
- Plasma miRNA-146b-3p, -222-3p, -221-5p, -21a-3p Expression Levels andInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2024Article
- Negative association between higher maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index and breastfeeding outcomes is not mediated by DNA methylation.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Breastfeeding: science and knowledge in pediatric obesity prevention.Frontiers in medicine · 2024Article
- Updates to data versions and analytic methods influence the reproducibility of results from epigenome-wide association studies.Epigenetics · 2022Article
- Breastfeeding and Allergy Effect Modified by Genetic, Environmental, Dietary, and Immunological Factors.Nutrients · 2022Review
- Immunomodulatory Properties of Human Breast Milk: MicroRNA Contents and Potential Epigenetic Effects.Biomedicines · 2022Review
- Review
- DNA methylation mediates the association between breastfeeding and early-life growth trajectories.Clinical epigenetics · 2021Article
- Article
- Epigenome-Wide Association Study Reveals Duration of Breastfeeding Is Associated with Epigenetic Differences in Children.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- DNA Methylation Signatures of Breastfeeding in Buccal Cells Collected in Mid-Childhood.Nutrients · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundBreastfeeding is associated with short and long-term health benefits. Long-term effects might be mediated by epigenetic mechanisms, yet the literature on this topic is scarce. We performed the first epigenome-wide association study of infant feeding, comparing breastfed vs non-breastfed children. We measured DNA methylation in children from peripheral blood collected in childhood (age 7 years, N = 640) and adolescence (age 15-17 years, N = 709) within the Accessible Resource for Integrated Epigenomic Studies (ARIES) project, part of the larger Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort. Cord blood methylation (N = 702) was used as a negative control for potential pre-natal residual confounding.
resultsTwo differentially-methylated sites presented directionally-consistent associations with breastfeeding at ages 7 and 15-17 years, but not at birth. Twelve differentially-methylated regions in relation to breastfeeding were identified, and for three of them there was evidence of directional concordance between ages 7 and 15-17 years, but not between birth and age 7 years.
conclusionsOur findings indicate that DNA methylation in childhood and adolescence may be predicted by breastfeeding, but further studies with sufficiently large samples for replication are required to identify robust associations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.