Introduction
Is milk good or bad for us? This debate continues to rage in the community. Whilst breastmilk is well accepted as a healthy and nourishing food for infants, the impact of highly processed cow’s milk that we find in the supermarket is highly questionable.
One of the reasons for this is that the processing destroys the good components of natural milk and over-concentrates the negative ones. Humans are well designed to have breast milk, but high amounts of processed cow’s milk very much can give our gut a hard time.
Colostrum is the first milk produced by mammals for their offspring. It is rich in nutrients as well as calming and protective compounds. These include lactoferrin, a positive anti-microbial protein, as well as immunoglobulins-the major molecules our body can use to directly combat disease.
Colostrum and lactoferrin are increasingly used to boost the health of people needing some immune support and a calming gut agent.
Lactoferrin
Lactoferrin is a naturally occurring protein that our body makes. It is typically found in milk, tears and saliva. It is well known for its antimicrobial effect in the body including antiviral, antibacterial and gut soothing capacities. It does so by blocking viral entry into cells and prevents bacteria from accessing iron and thus stunting their spread.
Milk and colostrum, the first expression of milk after the birth of a new baby, are rich sources of lactoferrin. Colostrum contains a range of immunoglobulins which help the body fight bugs. Furthermore, it contains many proteins and growth factors which heal the gut and modulate the immune system and colostrum has been employed in healing inflammatory gut diseases.
One area of interest is dry eyes. Lactoferrin has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory capacities. Dry eye has many causes and is a complex topic, however studies have shown improvements in dry eye symptoms by the use of oral lactoferrin. Zinc is essential to lactoferrin and effective tears; zinc deficiency is often associated with dry eyes and mouth.
Lactoferrin is used typically in the form of bovine colostrum for healing the gut, improving gut based allergic disorders and prior to probiotic therapy for gut bacteria imbalance. It can be taken by itself to improve tears alongside other treatments.
References
Ben Ya’acov A, Lichtenstein Y, Zolotarov L, Ilan Y. The gut microbiome as a target for regulatory T cell-based immunotherapy: induction of regulatory lymphocytes by oral administration of anti-LPS enriched colostrum alleviates immune mediated colitis. BMC Gastroenterol. 2015;15:154. Published 2015 Oct 30. doi:10.1186/s12876-015-0388-x
Langer P. Differences in the composition of colostrum and milk in eutherians reflect differences in immunoglobulin transfer. J. Mammal. 2009;90:332–339. doi: 10.1644/08-MAMM-A-071.1.
Bovine colostrum is a health food supplement which prevents NSAID induced gut damage.
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Devendra J, Singh S. Effect of Oral Lactoferrin on Cataract Surgery Induced Dry Eye: A Randomised Controlled Trial. J Clin Diagn Res. 2015;9(10):NC06-NC9. doi:10.7860/JCDR/2015/15797.6670
Dogru M, Matsumoto Y, Yamamoto Y, et al. Lactoferrin in Sjögren’s syndrome. Ophthalmology. 2007;114(12):2366-2367. doi:10.1016/j.ophtha.2007.06.027
Vagge A, Senni C, Bernabei F, et al. Therapeutic Effects of Lactoferrin in Ocular Diseases: From Dry Eye Disease to Infections. Int J Mol Sci. 2020;21(18):6668. Published 2020 Sep 12. doi:10.3390/ijms21186668
