Colostrum Supplements: What Are They and Should I Be Taking One?
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Is it just me or have you also been seeing every other influencer on your Instagram feed talking about colostrum powder lately? I know this is how trends work, but seriously. All of a sudden it’s everywhere… If you’re like me, you probably have A LOT of questions.
The biggest one I have is where are they getting all this colostrum from??? As a woman that has breastfed, I’m just having trouble picturing the logistics of… colostrum harvesting?
I had other content planned for today… But I have to know more about this so my selfish research interests become your holistic health and natural wellness content for the day.
Besides placenta encapsulation., I can’t think of something more natural hippie than taking colostrum as a supplement. I’m actually surprised to see it become so mainstream given the kinds of criticism that other trends like placenta encapsulation receive. But here we are.
This is the first time I’ve discussed supplementation on The Whole FamiLee, though I will likely do so more and more in the future. One thing you will notice is that I tend to be very hard on supplements. There are so many out there with heavy fanfare that promise a variety of benefits and a lot of them have little evidence of their efficacy. They’re also usually EXPENSIVE. Additionally, most supplements promise to do for you (at a high cost!) what a well-rounded, healthy diet can do for you so much cheaper and more effectively.
A general rule of thumb, if you eat a balanced diet, you’re probably peeing out most of your supplements. And if you’re not eating a balanced diet, you should probably start there before throwing all your money at supplementation.
Anyway, here’s what to expect from this article:
What is a colostrum supplement?
What are the benefits of colostrum supplements and are they backed by science?
First off, what is colostrum?
In case you didn’t already know this, let’s cover what colostrum even is. Colostrum is the first milk produced by new mothers. It is thicker, yellowish, and stickier than “normal” milk and is protein rich and high in vitamins and minerals to really give baby that solid nutrition in its first days, especially since they don’t drink as much milk the first few days.
But did you know humans aren’t the only ones that produce colostrum? I may be exposing myself as a dummy here… but I would generally consider myself pretty smart and did not for a second stop to think about whether other animals produce colostrum or not. Turns out, they do! Apparently, all female mammals produce colostrum those first few days after birth.
So what exactly is a colostrum supplement?
Colostrum supplements, contrary to my initial and very confusing thoughts, are typically bovine. They can come from goats and other mammals because, as I stated, all female mammals produce colostrum after birth, but they are most likely to be from cows.
This explains why this trend doesn’t flag as much hate as something like placenta encapsulation because typically people are much more willing to eat and drink animal products (including milk and organs) than they are humans. This is probably a palatability issue more than anything, but I get it.
This also clears up my racing questions about where they round up all these new moms to harvest their colostrum… They don’t, they harvest colostrum just like they would regular milk from cows. Which, like… obviously.
Surprisingly, I found that colostrum supplements aren’t new. Though I’m seeing them for the first time, they’ve been around for at least a decade and in research for longer than that. There have also been other waves of increased hype around them.
As far as research results and conclusions, I find this review of bovine colostrum to be somewhat… I don’t even know what word to use. Overhyped? I would take their conclusions with a grain of salt because they’re grand. However, it provides a great overview of the biochemistry of bovine colostrum that can shed a lot of light on potential benefits of colostrum supplementation. It’s not a free article, but if you’re super committed to learning more, have at. Another important caveat is that it’s examining the biochemistry of colostrum, not colostrum supplements. This is important because it’s still unclear exactly what changes occur with processing of colostrum but there are sure to be quality changes.
What are the supposed benefits of colostrum supplements? Are they supported by the data?
As with any supplement on the market, there are major claims about what they will do to improve your life. Let’s take a look at the most popular ones for colostrum supplements.
The most wide-spread claims about colostrum supplements purport that they will improve your gut health, strengthen your immune system, aid in muscle recovery, boost health at a cellular level, and improve your hair and skin. Let’s evaluate a little closer what these claims mean exactly and if there’s any evidence to support them.
1. Improve gut health
Claims that colostrum supplements improve gut health and specific conditions like leaky gut and IBS are pretty common. How would it do this?
Without getting too into the weeds, many gut issues essentially boil down to loss of integrity in the mucosal lining of the intestines that allow bacteria, viruses, and other pathogens to transfer to the bloodstream and lymph system, which can cause a lot of problems. There are a few reasons this can happen and it’s not always easy to tell. Typically, it is related to an inappropriate immune response to pathogens, inflammation, food sensitivities, or infections.
How does colostrum help with this? The argument is that colostrum helps improve the integrity of that intestinal mucosal lining and thus helps the gut to repair and protect itself from further damage. But is there evidence for this?
While there is a decent amount of research on colostrum supplements (pretty much all research deals with bovine colostrum, specifically), unfortunately quite a bit of it comes from a journal called Nutrients, which has been criticized for having questionable practices around article selection and potentially publishing research that is sub-industry standard (likely in terms of qualities like sample size, statistical analysis techniques, and interpretation of statistics) It is peer-reviewed and isn’t necessarily worth nothing, but we should keep in mind that if there is not corroboration from other sources, we cannot take their articles entirely at face value.
One comprehensive review from Nutrients on the impact of BC supplementation on gut health compiled many scientific studies (including randomized controlled trials) published in other, more trustworthy journals with a plethora of results indicating improvement of GI conditions with colostrum supplementation. This was particularly true for issues such as NSAID-induced GI injury, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and infectious diarrhea. With this review it is especially important to keep in mind it was funded by a colostrum product company. Again, that doesn’t mean it’s worth nothing, but it is more likely to compile favorable over unfavorable evidence, especially in a journal like Nutrients.
A separate review found significant evidence that bovine colostrum supplementation can improve gastrointestinal symptoms of some GI disorders through a few immune supporting functions and facilitation of gut tissue repair. They note the various components found in bovine colostrum and their individual as well as synergistic impacts. They do caution that more research is needed to corroborate these findings as well as specific research is needed to understand the role of processing and manufacturing on the innate benefits of colostrum once processed to supplement form.
As with anything, a product that has been processed is not going to be as potent as the original, fresh form. Just like fresh fruits and nutrients lose a lot of their nutritional value within the first day they’re picked and increasingly from there.
Another note on the research for colostrum supplementation, the studies in these reviews and other individual studies I found are almost all animal or small sample studies. This means they either were studies of colostrum supplementation of animals like mice and pigs and then extrapolated out or they were conducted with human participants but only a small number of participants.
I didn’t individually analyze the reliability of the sample statistics of each study (I only have so much time, y’all), but I will say that I would hesitate to tout the generalizability of these studies. The number of studies with similar findings is very promising, but I’d like to see several studies with much larger sample sizes conducted with humans to corroborate these findings.
This is actually acknowledged in the research by a few authors. This review from Advances in Nutrition cited some decent evidence that bovine colostrum may improve symptoms of inflammatory diseases like IBD and especially strong evidence that it is anti-inflammatory at the least, but notes that there are not enough human studies on this supplement yet.
So does colostrum supplementation improve gut health? Honestly, surprise to me, it actually may. The evidence, though somewhat lacking, is pretty promising. I expect to see increasing evidence of the benefits of colostrum supplementation for gut health. It’s pretty exciting. Just don’t hang your hat on it yet.
2. Strengthen the immune system
Another major claim of colostrum supplements is that they strengthen the immune system. This is reported to be because of peptides present in colostrum, such as immunoglobulins, lactoferrin, and growth factors. These have differing functions but mostly they’re supposed to help by providing genetic information to fight viruses (like vaccines but not as concentrated or effective), effectively attack damaged cells and free radicals, and promote cell differentiation and repair throughout the body, respectively.
If you’re interested in learning more about this, check out this review, with the caveat that only sections 1 and 2 are really helpful. The rest of it is just a repackaging of the Nutrients article I mentioned above. This article is also from Nutrients and funded by a colostrum company so, again, don’t take all their conclusions for fact. However, their review of the composition of bovine colostrum as well as related research to support the supposed impacts of the constituents is thorough and comes from a variety of very solid journals.
To keep this simple, I will say I found the research on colostrum supplementation improving the immune system to be somewhat unconvincing, except for potential improvement of incidence and rate of upper respiratory tract infections (URTIs).
There seems to be a decent amount of preliminary research, but study after study I found was either animal research (which is not irrelevant, but we have to be careful about extrapolating this directly to humans without other evidence) or had very small sample sizes. I mean one article I found that was actually so interesting and could have been promising had a sample size of FOUR. Four humans. That’s just not enough. It’s a pilot study, which by nature calls for further research, but still.
Again, one area where there does appear to be limited but promising evidence is that colostrum supplementation may protect against and improve the symptoms of URTIs and could have some antiviral properties by increasing the count of helpful antiviral components the immune system naturally produces. The research for this isn’t perfect, with a decent number of confounding variables, limited sample sizes, and an overall lack of rigorous trials showing immune benefits. But it’s promising. Unfortunately, it seems that for this topic there are just a high number of overall studies, but low number of high-quality, generalizable studies.
There is also preliminary evidence that colostrum supplementation may be effective as a concurrent treatment with other medicines to improve outcomes of various illness and disease courses.
So, preliminarily, maybe colostrum supplementation will improve your immune system, but I do not think there is enough evidence for you to spend hundreds of dollars on a supplement based on this little quantity and quality of research.
3. Aid in athletic performance and recovery
To keep this simple, I found absolutely no credible evidence that colostrum supplementation aids in muscle recovery or athletic performance, yet I saw multiple companies center this claim in their advertising. There are a handful of very limited studies that don’t appear to be designed very well, have the tiniest sample sizes, and have mixed conclusions. There were like two studies that seemed to have very clear, favorable conclusions, but they had tiny sample sizes and there were several uncontrolled factors and individual subject differences that could have produced the results. I’m not buying it without many more similar results. Even a current popular colostrum supplement company could only list this review as evidence, and it self-admits to the lack of randomized controlled trials and need for way more research.
Also, you can probably achieve any of the stated athletic benefits through a solid diet. When these companies talk about their supplement improving athletic performance, it mostly revolves around combating oxidative stress and helping with muscle recovery. You can eat a handful of blueberries packed with antioxidants for much cheaper and with much better bioavailability than colostrum powder. Follow that up with a chicken breast and you’ve got all the protein you need for muscle recovery.
So no, colostrum supplementation will not help with your athletic endeavors. Unless your athletic issues stem from gut issues, then… see above. But you get what I’m saying.
4. Boost health at a cellular level
The final major claim I’ll point to is that colostrum supplements “boost your health at a cellular level.” First of all, this is kind of vague. It’s easy to say something like this because it doesn’t really mean anything. You can have healthy and unhealthy cells that are better or worse at their functions. But for a product to improve health from a cellular level is kind of a red flag claim in my opinion.
Now, related to some of the research seen with the gut and immune system impacts, it may be possible that colostrum supplements help improve the number of cells that are helpful in fighting infections and free radicals, which damage cell integrity. You know what this is likely from? Antioxidants. Again, blueberries.
The more convincing impact is that colostrum supplementation does seem to assist in improving the mucosal lining of the intestines, lungs, and sinuses (see our overviews on gut health and immune system above), which helps protect the cells underneath that lining from damage.
For instance, the GI impacts imply that cellular regeneration is allowed to occur because the mucus lining is supported enough that pathogens can stop attacking the cell wall of the intestines. This mucus lining improvement in the lungs and sinuses probably also explains the decrease in rate of respiratory infections sometimes cited with colostrum supplementation. But this is a little different than claiming that colostrum will FoRTifY thE cEllS of YouR BOdY. Oy.
As I’ve gotten at in other articles, I would be wary of products with grand claims like these. Look at what they’re really saying and if they can really deliver evidence for their claim, especially whether it’s even possible to provide evidence for it. In this case, it’s probably just marketing and could be more honestly wrapped up in the gut and immune benefits.
5. Improve your skin and hair
I only saw a couple companies state this improvement, but let’s analyze it.
There is not a ton of research on skin and hair improvements related to colostrum. What does exist does not consider colostrum supplementation at all but evaluates cellular experiments where parts of colostrum are applied to a couple kinds of cultivated skin cells or keratinocytes. While the results were favorable, they can’t be directly translated to colostrum supplementation = improvement in skin and hair without actual human data.
Though not something I’ve studied enough to have a strong opinion on, I have seen decent evidence that collagen can improve skin and hair quality and appearance. As a milk product, colostrum does have some collagen and collagen precursors. So it’s definitely possible that colostrum may help your skin and hair through the collagen it contains.
The only other “evidence” I’ve seen is what supplement companies claim, that X% of people saw less wrinkles and thicker hair. I’ve stated in other articles that I don’t discount allegorical evidence. But without scientific evidence to back it up, I don’t put much stock in it.
6. Boost energy, mood, and focus
The only company I saw state this was ARMRA, but let’s unpack it anyway.
Some colostrum supplements claim that they will boost your energy, mood, and focus. There simply isn’t any research on this. There aren’t even any good customer surveys on this. I have trolled reddit boards and seen plenty of people say they noticed an improvement in their energy and focus after starting a colostrum supplement. So there’s that, I guess.
It’s certainly possible that a colostrum supplement could improve these things, but if it did, I’d be willing to bet it’s because of the punch of protein and fat it delivers. I won’t get into the science of that here, but that’s pretty well established. You could accomplish that a lot cheaper by drinking a glass of milk or eating a handful of almonds.
Summary / TLDR
I’m not going to lie, researching and writing for this article hurt my brain a little bit. Some things surprised me but mostly I found what I’d expected. There were a couple potential benefits of colostrum supplementation, but mostly a lot of fluff.
The most promising promises of colostrum supplementation are that it may improve your gut health and reduce your incidence and severity of getting upper respiratory tract infections. The science isn’t rock-hard, impermeable, super-solid, but it’s definitely promising.
The mechanism of these improvements are not fully understood, but it appears that it may have to do with the potential for colostrum to improve the mucosal linings of your intestines, lungs, and sinuses, which protects the cells under that lining from allowing pathogens in that could cause damage or make you sick. Honestly, it’s pretty exciting. However, we have a long way to go in beefing up the research for this. Will these benefits occur for you? No guarantees. Could you get the same effect from drinking more milk? Very possible. But we don’t really know that yet.
What colostrum supplementation is not likely to do for you (there is not enough evidence or the quality of existing evidence is poor) is improve your cellular health (whatever they mean by this) or improve your athletic performance and recovery. Colostrum supplementation may improve your energy and focus, but there’s no real evidence of this and there are far cheaper ways to achieve this.
And that’s honestly what a lot of this comes down to for me. There are some key potential benefits that are exciting, but most of these things can be accomplished much cheaper by simply living a healthy lifestyle of good food, movement, caring for yourself, and reducing stress.
I said at one point you could eat a handful of blueberries for the same antioxidant effects or drink a glass of milk for the same energy effects of a colostrum supplement that could cost you $100 a month. Also, supplements tend to offer one nutrient in a specific concentration, which is never as effective as consuming that nutrient concurrently with all the other nutrients you need (as you do when you eat real food). Colostrum is slightly different, but it’s still a small set of necessary nutrients, not the whole scope.
Personally, unless I had significant gut issues or got respiratory infections on the reg, I would not waste my money on a supplement with so little evidence. If you’re generally healthy, save your money. If you struggle with these issues, maybe it’s worth the investment for a time to take a chance on seeing improvement. And if you have all the money in the world, do whatever you want.
Back in the day when I had a lot of gut issues, I probably would have gone for Ancestral Supplements Colostrum, but Wondercow looks like a decent company too.
Also, as always, beware of marketing. I saw one company, ARMRA, that markets one container for immunity and one for athletic performance, both with the same proprietary ARMRA colostrum concentrate, and the only difference was what’s added for flavor… That’s super scammy to me.
I hope I was able to bring you some clarity on this issue! If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to shoot me an email. If you would like to receive more of this content, stay tuned for future posts and join our newsletter. I currently send monthly newsletters with the most recent posts as well as news and updates on all things holistic health and natural wellness.
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