Alpha lipid collustrum and high blood pressure?

I like coming to Y!A because its often the first place I hear about the newest bit of woo-woo. I don't know about how new this is, but it's the first I'd ever heard of it. So...lets work through how one evaluates claims.

First, what DO we know about colostrum? It is produced in mammalian milk in the first few hours and days after birth, and contains a variety of ingredients including easily digested proteins and immunoglobulins from the mother. This helps give the newborn some early protection against any diseases the mother has previously been exposed to, as baby's immune systems are quite immature. It will help with neonatal jaundice, and it is a bit of a laxative to help the baby pass any meconium that is still in their GI tract. There's a few more details, but that is the essence.

Given what we know about colostrum, what is in it and what it does, there is no reason to even speculate that it might have an effect on blood pressure in adults. But, lets do a quick literature review by going to MedLine, PubMed and the Cochrane database. There is very little evidence I could find that colostrum has any use after the first few days of life, and in particular, nothing confirmed about treatment of high blood pressure. Here is one article which suggests that polypeptides in colostrum might relax arterial walls.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFullte...

However, none of this is confirmed and there are no studies comparing treatment of hypertension with colustrum vs standard therapy. So, there is no reason to promote it INSTEAD of standard therapy.

A review of several of the websites that appear when one types in "alpha lipid colostrum" shows the typical grandiose, extravagant claims and the usual small print about 'we imply no diagnosis or treatment and these claims have not been evaluated etc etc'. They contain a lot of testimonials, and there are links to other products and services I already know to be quackery. So...lets just say my skepticism is supported by taking the promoters at their own weasel words.

I think this is the typical Altie problem of knowing a little..usually very little... about something (colostrum good pills bad) and extrapolation far beyond what common sense or evidence would dictate, then repeating it often enough that it becomes "common knowledge".

If it worked for blood pressure, there would be some evidence somewhere for this, and there simply isn't beyond some speculative early research that hasn't been confirmed or tested clinically. Furthermore, the source of the colostrum is not obvious, and is presumably animal, not human. We know that human colostrum is good for humans, we don't know about cow colostrum.

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I've been trying to explain the benefits of "High Blood Pressure" to Marla for ages now...hee hee... But as you can clearly tell... She's still thinking about it...hee hee... (Sorry, Marla...I couldn't resist mentioning you somehow...One day...You, Tyler, and I are going to party... ...and it will be a "Total Gas, Baby!") (Tyler...you're the best, dude...keep me laughing... ...for ALL the World's Sake!" Geezus! Hee Hee...)