Apparently some adults prefer to drink breast milk, but is that really what’s breast for
them?
Whatup my mammals, I’m Julian for DNews.
There’s a small community of adults who have taken to drinking human breast milk.
Some for the taste or pleasure, others for the supposed health benefits.
While science can’t dictate whether or not someone’s personal preferences are right
or wrong, it can debunk health claims, so let’s see if breast milk is the “superfood”
some forums claim it is.
Some fitness forums claim human breast milk is a good supplement for bulking routines
because, they say, it has more nutritional value than dairy and can help athletes recover
from workouts faster.
But breast milk’s composition doesn’t totally agree with those claims.
On average mature human milk is 0.8%-0.9% protein, far less than whole milk’s 3.3%.
As for caloric content, it’s slightly above whole milk.
Whole milk offers 62.6 kcal per 100 ml, and human milk is 60-75 kcal per 100 ml.
Breast milk does have more lactose in it, around 7% while whole milk has about 4%, so
the higher levels of that carbohydrate may indeed help replenish energy stores faster.
By comparison though Gatorade is 13% carbohydrates, so the self-reported energy benefits are likely
a placebo effect.
Another purported benefit of breast milk is it’s easier to digest and has antibodies
from the mother in it.
With that in mind, some chemotherapy patients have taken to drinking it as a source of nutrition
and to bolster their immune system.
There’s a few problems with this line of thinking though: chemotherapy can cause a
lactase deficiency for some patients and because breast milk has more lactose in it, it’s
actually harder to digest.
Then there’s the claim about antibodies.
The most common antibody in breast milk is immunoglobulin A. These antibodies protect
surfaces of the body like the nose, ears, eyes, breathing passages, digestive tract,
and vagina.
While they may actually benefit the patient, they’re going to lose some effectiveness
if the mother lives elsewhere and so is exposed to different pathogens.
Which brings us to a bigger problem.
There are non-profit breast milk banks in the United States, but they cater to infants
who need milk and the cost of operation means the milk can be expensive.
There are sites like Only the Breast that allow mothers to sell and ship their product
to anyone directly.
Since there’s no standard on how the milk is packed and shipped, it’s often stored
in a way that allows bacteria to contaminate it.
The New York Times found that 64% of samples from milk sharing sites had staph, 36% had
strep, and a whopping 74% would have failed milk bank criteria.
Plus the milk is usually unscreened or unpasteurized.
A milk bank in San Jose, California that screens potential donors had to turn away 3.3% of
them because they tested positive for HIV, syphilis, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, or human
T-cell lymphotropic virus, which is a virus that can actually cause cancer.
If a mother has any of these, she can pass them on in her breast milk.
That is the absolute last thing immunocompromised chemo patients need, and if they’re buying
milk from unscreened donors, they’re taking a huge risk.
So it looks like breast milk isn’t the wonder food some health or fitness forums make it
out to be.
It’s absolutely top notch for babies, but the benefits for adults are negligible and
it can even be very harmful if it comes from a bad source.
As for the weirdness factor of drinking breast milk as an adult?
Well keep in mind adult humans couldn’t drink any milk until a genetic mutation about
12,000 years ago.
And it’s still primarily a european thing.
It’s why 95% of asians and almost 100% of native americans are lactose intolerant.
So maybe reconsider that drinking cow boob juice is pretty weird already, when you think
about it.