How bovine colostrum turns up your immune system

April 30, 9:15 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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Bovine colostrum supplements lower risks of upper respiratory illnesses and diarrhea in immune-suppressed children, and a reduced risk of intestinal damage from anti-inflammatory drugs. They also turn up your immune system.

This milk is rich in immunoglobulins. These are proteins that help promote the immune system to fight bacteria and viruses. You get the antibodies of the cow in the colostrums. Other compounds in colostrum include growth factors and nucleosides not found in milk older than 6 hours. What you don’t get in colostrums is synthetic growth hormones.

What you do get are the anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties. For example, in Now brand colostrums capsules, you get in each 500 mg capsule an average of 25% IgG Antibodies and a minimum of 0.6% Lactoferrin. I get the powder form and take a teaspoon in my almond milk shake every few weeks and also give my dog a little colostrum mixed with liquid to tune up his immune system.

The Synertek site  offers information on the benefits of the first six hour bovine colostrum. Synertek's  athletics and body building information site reports, “Bovine colostrum builds muscle and improves athletic performance without side effects.” There are testimonies of Olympic trainers and world class athletes.

Synertek's immunity information site notes, “Colostrum provides protection against pathogens and is vital to the survival of newborns. Colostrum works for adults as well, fortifying the immune system and regulating the immune response.

The use of Synertek colostrum has been shown to raise serum immune factors in humans by 50%.” There’s a link to clinical research  noting immune modulation and immunity enhancement for humans. It mentions research on the use of colostrum “in infant formulas to offer infants both clinical and nutritional benefits of this miracle natural food.”

Always check with your pediatrician and your own physician to see whether the Clinical Research data is right for your family’s use. You have to be careful about turning up your immune system. If you turn it up too much you could cause an auto-immune disease. That happens when your immune system thinks your own body is a foreign object and attacks it. So always check with your doctor.

Bovine colostrum, the first lacteal secretion produced by the mammary gland of a mother prior to the production of milk, is a natural immune system enhance. Check out the Colostrum™ site. The site is the leading online resource for scientific and practical bovine colostrum information and how it stimulates and regulates the immune system and good health. Any secretion after the first removal of all or part of the colsotrum is called transitional milk.

Colostrum must be collected from only the first single milking immediately after birth or up to six hours after in order to keep the perfect immunological bioactive proteins. This nature’s balance of proteins is consumed by humans and animals, including pets, to enhance their immune systems.

Studies done at a major United States University compared eight different brands of colostrum and found a wide range of values. When you decide to buy colostrum, look for only the values present in 0-6 hour colostrum. One example of 0-6 hour colostrum is Certified First Milking Bovine Colostrum®.

See their clinical trials site and their veterinary research site. You can look at the value determinations. The scientific method measured total solids, protein, lactose, and immunoglobulins in First Milking Bovine Colostrum® in order to find out the effects of first milking colostrums. According to the site, “One or two of these factors can be altered but it is difficult to manipulate all four factors to duplicate first milking colostrum.”

What’s the difference between the use of colostrums on animals from calf to pets such as dogs and the use of colostrums on people regarding turning up their immune systems with the natural antibodies from the cow in the colostrums that was meant for the calf? There's not much of a difference in the immune systems. Just the body chemistry is different. For more information on the difference between animals and humans regarding the cellular functions, see their veterinary research site.

If you buy colostrums for human use to increase your immune system, be aware that, according to their colostrums research site, colostrum needs to be collected from the cow in 0 to 6 hours after the birth of a calf.

What does colostrum that’s in perfect balance do for humans? It creates an abundance of immune First milking only colostrum is in perfect balance and when ingesting small amounts will help normalize, regulate and maintain body functions – if not by direct action, by the concert action of regulating and supporting other organs, glands and systems.

Athletes take bovine colostrums for its oligosaccharides, antimicrobials, and immune-regulating factors. According to Dr. Ray Sahelian’s site, studies have tested bovine colostrum “for immune system support, use for athletic performance, gastrointestinal disorders such as diarrhea, particularly in persons with immune-deficiency syndromes or those who have been on heavy antibiotic regimens.”

Your body is supposed to produce regulating bio-proteins in perfect balance. As different conditions come about, various body functions cease to perform properly. As you age and systems stop working normally, or depending upon the food you eat and your lifestyle, your body changes. The systems may no longer be in balance.

Maybe you need to stimulate your immune system a bit to fight off viruses or bacteria, but not so much that your body turns on itself and you develp an autoimmune disease. So find out whether your body needs colostrum and what it can do for you if you need it. You'd want to know whether your body is tackling the bad bacteria and leaving the good bacteria to do its job.