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Researchers at the University of Pittsburg looked at data from over 2000 women in Kasier Permenente’s healthcare system aged 40-78. They found that women who gave birth but did not breastfeed were twice as likely to develop Type 2 diabetes compared with women who breastfed or never gave birth.

The reduction of diabetes risk may be related to the way breastfeeding women lose weight. Breastfeeding can help women lose “visceral” fat– the kind stored around the stomach and organs, and the hardest to lose. But it could also be that lactation improves glucose metabolism– diabetic women usually require less insulin when they are breastfeeding.

Though breastfeeding is often talked about in terms of benefits for the baby- including reduced risk for obesity, allergies, asthma and infections– there are benefits for the mother, too. Breastfeeding is associated with reduced reproductive cancers, arthritis, heart disease. Though the studies supporting these claims show benefits only for mothers who breastfeed for more than several months. (You can read more about these benefits here.)

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Although limited evidence has found variability in cardiovascular risk among Asian subgroups, most studies lump Asian Americans — the fastest growing racial-ethnic group in the country — into a single cohort, according to the advisory, which was published online in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

“We’ve done an excellent job in researching disparities in other minority groups, but great gaps remain in our knowledge about Asian Americans,” Latha Palaniappan, MD, chair of the AHA’s scientific advisory on cardiovascular disease in Asian Americans, said in a statement.

“We are making a call to action for national funding organizations that the study of Asian Americans should be a priority,” added Palaniappan, who is an investigator at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute in California.

Several major federal surveys have only recently begun dividing Asian Americans into subgroups, including the six largest — Asian Indian (or South Asian), Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese.

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The study, to be published in the September issue of Pediatrics, finds that black, Hispanic and American Indian girls have two to three times higher odds of having a high body-mass index (BMI) compared to white girls.

What’s more, although rates of obesity peaked for Hispanic girls in 2005, they have kept on rising for American Indian and black girls.

“What was encouraging was that we saw some decline in obesity, (but) we saw an increase in the racial disparities. So, whatever policies we’re putting in place probably aren’t having the effect we want for all groups,” said study author Dr. Kristine Madsen, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Unfortunately, today’s policies may be increasing the disparities in childhood obesity, and we need to target the communities that get left behind,” she said.

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An analysis including more than 8 million California children and teens showed encouraging declines in obesity following a peak in 2005 among Asian and white boys and girls and among Hispanic boys.

But obesity continued to climb among African-American and American Indian girls and remained stable for Hispanic girls.

And public health efforts aimed at addressing the obesity epidemic do not appear to have had much impact for the heaviest children — those with body mass indexes (BMIs) in the 99th percentile.

The findings can be viewed as both an encouraging and troubling report card on these efforts, researcher Kristine Madsen, MD, MPH, of the University of California, San Francisco, tells WebMD.

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The data for obesity, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and heart disease don’t look good — particularly for African-Americans. The death rate for them is among the highest, with no sign of changes to prevent a premature demise.

But Mehmet Oz, a physician and host of “The Dr. Oz Show,” told the National Association of Black Journalists convention last month in San Diego that a change of strategy has to occur to get people to adopt healthier habits. Doctors, health care workers and government officials have to appeal to folks’ “feelings” instead of hitting them with mind-numbing data.

The numbers are a turnoff. People have to “turn on” to change because it “feels” like the right thing to do.

This was the second national black convention in a month to put health concerns at the top of the agenda. The first was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s meeting in Kansas City.

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The research revealed that 46.1% of Hispanic-American adults drink alcohol and 6.6% use illicit drugs, compared with national average rates of 55.2% and 7.9%, respectively.

However, Hispanic-American adults have a slightly higher level of binge drinking (26.3 percent versus 24.5%) and a slightly higher past-year need for alcohol treatment (8.7 percent versus 8.1%), according to a news release from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

The study also found significant differences in rates of adult substance use among various Hispanic-American groups. For example, the level of past month alcohol use among Spanish Americans is above the national average and 50% higher than among Dominican Americans (60.8 percent versus 40.3%, respectively). And the rate of current illicit drug use among Spanish Americans is nearly three times higher than the level among Dominican Americans (13.1 percent versus 3.9%, respectively).

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The group also use drugs less (6.6 versus 7.9 percent) but are slightly more likely to binge drink (26.3 versus 24.5 percent).

Substance use is lower in Hispanics even when income is taken into account.

Hispanic-Americans in poverty drink less (31.1 versus 39.8 percent), do drugs less (5.9 percent versus 11.7), and binge drink less (21.3 versus 25.2) than other Americans in poverty, according to a new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

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She is one of 17 students from Liberty City — one of Miami’s most impoverished and crime-ridden neighborhoods — sitting along the edge of the pool, splashing their legs in the water and holding the sides as they learn to blow bubbles and get in and out of the pool.

All are part of the majority of African-American and Hispanic children across the country who don’t know how to swim — and here at the Swim Gym along the banks of Biscayne Bay, they’re part of the outreach effort to help get kids into the water.

“It’s a safety issue. We say, you don’t send your son out to play football without wearing a helmet, yet people go to the beach and they don’t know how to swim,” said Sue Anderson, USA Swimming’s Director of Programs and Services.

USA Swimming commissioned a study conducted by the University of Memphis and released in May that showed 69 percent of black children and 58 percent of Hispanic kids either had low or no swimming ability.

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According to government statistics, one in three children in the United States is overweight or obese, with black and Hispanic children facing the greatest risk of developing heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses related to obesity.

Addressing the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization at its 101st annual convention in Kansas City, in the central U.S. state of Missouri, Mrs. Obama said the African-American community in particular is suffering negative effects.

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