Hours after giving birth, I sat in my hospital bed holding my newborn as a nurse massaged my breasts. Squeezing each one from top to bottom, she was searching for any hint of the “good stuff” or so-called “liquid gold.” At last, the tiniest drop of yellow-tinted liquid fell like a raindrop. “That’s it!” the nurse exclaimed, as another nurse hurried my newborn up to my nipple.
As a first-time mother, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t a teaspoon of liquid that could have easily been mistaken as yellow sweat. Sometimes called “first milk,” colostrum is the first form of milk produced by the mammary glands of all mammals immediately after the delivery of a newborn. For human newborns, it’s essentially a customized, nutrient-packed shot filled with white blood cells that produces antibodies to strengthen the baby’s immune system. It also creates a coating on the newborn’s stomach to prevent germs from leading to illness and infections.
Colostrum further helps prevent low blood sugar, jaundice and even gives the baby’s brain the right nourishment to grow. Only one to four teaspoons of colostrum per day are produced by a mother for two to five days before transitional milk takes over, then breast milk. As many scientists would say, it’s “magic.”
“Colostrum from any animal mammal is what experts in the field of lactation and milk science referred to as 'liquid gold,'” Jennifer Smilowitz, an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of California-Davis told Salon, adding that it offers offspring specific nutrients and developmental demands. “It helps protect and develop different systems of the vulnerable neonates.”
Colostrum is the kind of detail about human health you don’t really learn about until you have a baby, so you can imagine my interest peaked when I heard a wellness entrepreneur promoting ads for colostrum supplements on her podcast that she swears by to “build her immune system.” A quick search on TikTok revealed that this is indeed taking over the wellness space this year. As one dietician said on TikTok, it’s the “one supplement” people should consider taking in 2024.
To be clear, these aren’t supplements of human colostrum, but instead cow colostrum. Also called bovine colostrum, researchers have been intrigued by its potential benefits for decades. It’s been popular among high-performing athletes, but only recently has it hit mainstream GOOP-like wellness circles. Google searches for “colostrum supplements” peaked over the last five years at the beginning of this month, and those for “bovine colostrum” reached an all-time high in December. But despite all the hype around the benefits of colostrum for mammalian newborns, could adults in the human species benefit from powdered bovine colostrum supplements, too?
For human newborns, researchers know that colostrum is important for a newborn’s gut health. Smilowitz said that’s because colostrum includes complex carbohydrates that can have a specific suite of microbes in the newborn’s intestines. It’s critical for that to be established early in life because the gut “educates the nearby immune system,” she said, adding that an estimated 70 to 80 percent of immune cells are present in the human gut. The two are inextricably linked.
Certainly, this is part of the draw to bovine colostrum, Smilowitz elaborated. Indeed, as what often happens in the world of wellness supplements, there is a jump in logic that leads to a neatly, easily-marketable promise. The story goes that similar benefits in human colostrum are also present in bovine colostrum, hence ingestion of cow colostrum in supplement form is the next best way to reap them. Smilowitz said it’s true that bovine colostrum is similar to human colostrum in the way that a mother cow’s colostrum delivers very specific molecules and nutrients to protect her calf.
“But the types and amounts are different from what's found in human milk,” she said. “Bovine colostrum contains antibodies that are specific to pathogens that the female cow is exposed to, and the main antibody in bovine colostrum is IgG [immunoglobulin G], while the main antibody in human colostrum is IGA [immunoglobulin A.]”
Bovine colostrum also has a lot of protein compared to human colostrum, she added. None of these differences, like IgG which is also in human breast milk, is necessarily harmful to humans. But the research doesn’t necessarily point to there being many benefits either. According to systematic reviews of people taking bovine colostrum for a variety of reasons, the data is mixed “at best,” she said.
“Some studies show some benefit and others show no effect,” she said, saying that some of the studies look at intestinal permeability, also known as “leaky gut,” or stool frequency, exercise performance or respiratory tract infections. One systematic study on bovine colostrum found that evidence on its impact on immunity was “nonconclusive.” Smilowitz said one reason for the mixed results could be that mixed quality in bovine colostrum. For one, the quality of the supplement depends on the health of the dam, or animal mother.
“It also depends on the timing of collecting the colostrum,” Smilowitz said. “Colostrum only lasts for so many days, so if the dairy farmer collects colostrum on day six, is that the same as day three?”
Most importantly, the FDA doesn’t regulate supplements which means there is no way for the quality to be ensured or for consumers to know what else the supplements contain. Usually after a dairy farmer sells colostrum to a supplier, the process is that the manufacturer proceeds to remove the fat, pasteurize it and dries it down into a powder.
“And what many consumers don't know is that the process in which you dry liquid, it can affect the quality of the molecules,” Smilowitz said, adding that heating the molecules too much or for too long can negate the function of the molecules. In other words, it could affect the quality. Freeze drying is the preferred method, but it’s also the more expensive one.
A company called ARMRA sells bovine colostrum, which range in price from $40 stick packs to $120 bulk jars. The company claims to be “clinically-backed” and sells a product that yields gut-related results like less bloating, less frequent heartburn and improvement in IBS symptoms, in addition to weight loss, thicker hair and fewer wrinkles.
Derek Beres, co-host of the Conspirituality Podcast, told Salon he sees threads of purity rhetoric in the promotion of bovine colostrum supplements. For this reason, he’s concerned that the wellness world’s focus on “gut health” right now could be leading to eating disorders. When supplements come to market claiming to promote the “good bacteria” in a person’s intestines, this mimics similar rhetoric that promotes and supports orthorexia, or the obsession with eating healthy food usually featuring dangerous overfixation on the quality of food and not the quantity.
“They're selling these things all under the guise of good gut health,” Beres said. “But there’s this whole premise that you need to balance all of your pH and it needs to be as good as possible.” He added that purity-focused discourse in wellness is “a big part of body fascism,” which is the discrimination of someone based on their appearance or weight.
Beres took a closer look at ARMRA and some of the studies they list on their website. In the studies cited, clinical efficacy for bovine colostrum is between 20 to 60 grams in powdered form. Notably, there is only one gram per serving in small ARMRA packets. The $120 bulk option has about 2 grams per serving. ARMRA did not respond to Salon's request for comment prior to publication.
As interest in bovine colostrum rises, there is also a concern that profits will be prioritized over the health of calves, as noted in one paper published last May in the Journal of Dairy Science. Co-author of the paper Angela Costa, a senior assistant professor in the department of veterinary medical sciences at the University of Bologna, told Salon via email there are some noted benefits to taking bovine colostrum for human adults.
“The inclusion of animal colostrum has been shown to increase athletic performance, muscle mass and bone health, resistance to fatigue, lean mass and immune system,” she said. But like anything that is rising in popularity, there is a downside and a tension between business and the health of the newborn calves. In her opinion, she thinks first milking of colostrum should always be reserved for the newborn calves themselves, as nature seemingly intended. But subsequent ones — particularly where there is a constant excess — can be used as a byproduct and be sold.
“Colostrum of the second and third milking, which is less rich in antibodies compared to the first colostrum, should be intended for this business,” she said. Smilowitz added that ultimately bovine supplements might be able to help people improve symptoms that result from conditions related to the immune system, but she’d suggest people talk to their healthcare providers first.
“But I would just caution that people should know they're not FDA regulated and the quality could vary,” she said.
