How to drink cow colostrum
Drinking bacteria-laden raw milk not quite awesome enough for you? Then try drinking bovine colostrum. It's even more gross — and equally pointless.
Colostrum is the first milk that a mammalian mother produces after giving birth. It does a number of things:
It’s a laxative, to help clear out bilirubin (an accumulation of dead red blood cells) and other muck that’s been building up in baby’s intestines during gestation, encouraging that first poop or two — all parents remember their first experience with meconium.
It has a bunch of antibodies to jumpstart junior’s immune system, now that he’s out in a world filled with microbes and no longer in the sterile safety of the womb, crucially containing IgA (immunoglobulin A).
It kickstarts the gut microbiome, providing shots of IGF-1 and IGF-2 (insulin-like growth factors), EGF (epidermal growth factor), lots of bacteria, and prebiotics.
And so, since there’s no reason an adult would need colostrum, you can guess: THE WELLNESS INDUSTRY SELLS IT.
It’s colostrum from cows, not from humans; and it usually comes in a dry powder that you’re supposed to mix into your drink every time you drink anything. I can’t find anyone selling the original stuff, and those that offer it in a liquid form have reconstituted it from the powder plus a bunch of weird organic extracts. One I found even adds “Icelandic Sea Salt”! The salt molecule is just better when it comes from the waters around Iceland… apparently.
Here are the claims made for bovine colostrum supplementation most often:
Repairs leaky gut syndrome (Note: this is an imaginary condition)
Protection against toxins (the toxins are conjectural)
Supports gut and digestive health (supports, as in has no direct effect on it)
Boosts the immune system (luckily this is false; a boosted immune system is what we term an autoimmune disease like lupus, and you don’t want that)
Enhances athletic performance (implausible and unevidenced)
Improved muscle:fat ratio (also implausible, unevidenced, and unobserved)
Activates hair growth, reduces hair loss, prevents graying, and promotes “stronger” hair (amazing the hair restoration industry hasn’t heard of it)
Improves mental focus, enhanced cognitive function, mood regulation, protects the brain against aging, and “supports balanced neurotransmitters” (I’m pretty sure they just made these all up)
Improved sleep quality (well, it’s not too far different from a glass of warm milk, I suppose)
And of course all of the usual stuff: it’s a superfood, improves overall vitality, promote whole-body wellness, reduces inflammation, regrows cells, aids in weight loss — in fact, I’m not even going to continue. This seriously isn’t even halfway down the list I wrote while going through the websites.
What is it we say that it means when a product claims to treat everything? It probably actually treats nothing.
But that doesn’t mean bovine colostrum supplements are harmless — far from it. It’s got a lot of problems. I’ve separated them into three categories: (1) Unpleasant side effects; (2) safety concerns; and (3) problems with the claims. Let’s begin with:
