Speaker 1: Emily, when you pitch the idea of talking about colostrum
Speaker 1: to me, I thought of the human substance that comes
Speaker 1: from that comes from breasts, yep, after a mother has
Speaker 1: a baby. And you were like, no, no, no, it's
Speaker 1: huge in the endurance athlete space. And I have like
Speaker 1: these horrifying visions of like human women in factories, this
Speaker 1: totally dystopian view. And then I learned that this is
Speaker 1: not humans where this colostrum is coming from, Thank you God.
Speaker 2: It is still a little dystopian, and we can get
Speaker 2: into the baby cows. But I will tell you that
Speaker 2: when people first started asking me about should I take colostrum?
Speaker 3: I assumed that they were talking about their.
Speaker 2: Own colostrum, And often this question was phrased like should
Speaker 2: my husband take colostrum? And it's like, well, there's only
Speaker 2: a tiny amount of it, Like you know, if you
Speaker 2: have a baby, that colostrum, it's like the first milk
Speaker 2: that comes in. It's thicker, it's more yellow, but it's
Speaker 2: like so little, and it's like you're desperately trying to
Speaker 2: get some of it out for your baby.
Speaker 3: It's like, fuck you, what do you mean? Your husband's like.
Speaker 1: This guy's got a marathon tomorrow.
Speaker 3: So what are you going to go?
Speaker 1: Cycle? Like? Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: And So we are talking about bovine colostrum in this episode,
Speaker 2: not human colostrum, which is a great food for babies,
Speaker 2: but should not be shared with your spouse even if
Speaker 2: they have a large endurance event.
Speaker 3: Coming up shortly.
Speaker 1: Cal colostrum coming right up.
Speaker 2: I'm Emily Oster. I'm an economist and a data expert.
Speaker 1: And I'm Perry Wilson, I'm a medical doctor.
Speaker 2: It's Thursday, May seventh, twenty twenty six. And this is
Speaker 2: wellness actually.
Speaker 1: Because you're getting a staggering amount of health and wellness
Speaker 1: information nowadays from every source imaginable, and some of it
Speaker 1: is awesome and some.
Speaker 3: Of it is well actually both.
Speaker 2: Fortunately we are both people who know how to read studies,
Speaker 2: how to parse the data, and can tell you what's
Speaker 2: worth thinking about and what you can safely ignore.
Speaker 1: But before we dig in, a note that this podcast
Speaker 1: is for educational purposes and should not be construed as
Speaker 1: medical advice. We don't know your unique situation, so talk
Speaker 1: to your doctor for personal health decisions.
Speaker 2: This week we're asking what's the deal with colostrum? Perry
Speaker 2: and I will give the official Smasher pass and then
Speaker 2: we'll get to your question of the week. But first
Speaker 2: let's do the health news roundup after the break, and
Speaker 2: now for the health news of the week, Perry, I
Speaker 2: want to start with a new trial in alcohol use
Speaker 2: disorder about ozembic, which I thought was really exciting.
Speaker 3: Did you think this was exciting?
Speaker 1: This is super exciting. The context here is that since
Speaker 1: ozepic has been a thing and been in diabetes and
Speaker 1: weight loss trials, there has been this, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you even want to call it a side effect,
Speaker 1: like an additional effect, which has been reported, which is
Speaker 1: people saying I'm not drinking as much alcohol and other
Speaker 1: things like not smoking as much, other sort of compulsive behaviors.
Speaker 1: But it hadn't really been formally tested, like let's do
Speaker 1: a trial specifically with this as the outcome. It was
Speaker 1: always just sort of icing on the cake. But this
Speaker 1: week we have a new randomized trial appearing in the Lancet,
Speaker 1: which randomized one hundred and eight participants about half men,
Speaker 1: half women. They all had alcohol use disorder. They all
Speaker 1: also had obesity, so they did have a like an
Speaker 1: FDA indication for ozempic. But the purpose of this trial
Speaker 1: was to see if the people that got ozepic versus
Speaker 1: placebo would have a reduction in days with heavy drinking,
Speaker 1: and indeed, they did a forty one percent reduction in
Speaker 1: the ozepic group compared to a twenty six percent reduction
Speaker 1: in the placebo group. That was statistically significant, and there
Speaker 1: was a bunch of other secondary effects that also suggested
Speaker 1: significantly less drinking. So, I mean, it's good news.
Speaker 3: It's really good news.
Speaker 2: I mean, we have relatively little treatment for alcohol use disorder.
Speaker 3: There are some.
Speaker 2: Medications, but they have pretty substantial side effects that make
Speaker 2: people not want to use them. They basically work by
Speaker 2: making drinking very unpleasant, and so this obviously works in
Speaker 2: a different way, and people describe it, at least anecdotally,
Speaker 2: it's more like you just don't want to drink, which
Speaker 2: is obviously much better than wanting to drink but then
Speaker 2: feeling bad when you do. So I thought this was
Speaker 2: really exciting. I think we'll be seeing more like this.
Speaker 2: I'd like to see some work on narcotics also, but
Speaker 2: I think that's probably down the line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean the big caveat here
Speaker 1: is that it does make you lose weight, and so
Speaker 1: this is not necessarily a therapy for people who are
Speaker 1: of normal weight to begin with, or you know, at
Speaker 1: some people with severe alcohol and drug use to sort
Speaker 1: of have are quite a bit underweight, so that'll sort
Speaker 1: of take this out of the picture for them. But
Speaker 1: really interesting to see some corroboration of the observational data
Speaker 1: on ozepic and alcohol use disorder. We need to close
Speaker 1: the book on perennial Surgeon General candidate doctor Casey Means, Emily,
Speaker 1: we the saga is over. I like to think we played,
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps a small part in the saga. So
Speaker 1: talk to me about no longer surgeon General candidate Casey Means,
Speaker 1: and where we are with this position that has been
Speaker 1: vacant for a long for a very long time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So, so the surgeon general position has been vacant for
Speaker 2: a long time. I think it's an interesting question of
Speaker 2: kind of is that something we should be concerned about
Speaker 2: the surgeon general is it's some ways a largely symbolic
Speaker 2: role and so we're not exactly missing a lot of
Speaker 2: things milestones, let's say, but it is a role that
Speaker 2: needs to be filled. Casey Means has been on the
Speaker 2: ropes in terms of approval. For many months now, it's
Speaker 2: been she I think was caught up in this in
Speaker 2: the backlash wave to some of the anti vax activities
Speaker 2: of the RFK administration.
Speaker 3: You know, people have lost patients. Some people have lost
Speaker 3: patients with the resistance to vaccines.
Speaker 1: As more and more, Senator.
Speaker 2: Cassidy noticed a lot of piece people got measles. And
Speaker 2: he noticed that whatever deal he had made with Kennedy
Speaker 2: was not followed through on. And he's had enough and
Speaker 2: that has tanked the nomination. The White House was not
Speaker 2: interested in getting losing further capital on this, and they
Speaker 2: have now nominated someone named Nicole Safire Leaves how you
Speaker 2: say her name? Who seems like a very standard up
Speaker 2: the middle of candidate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, up the middle for this administration. I would say,
Speaker 1: doctor Perry. She's an actual I'll take it. I will
Speaker 1: tell she's a doctor. She's a real doctor. She's a
Speaker 1: breast radiologist at Memorial Sloan kettering.
Speaker 3: As a reasonable she's a Fox News contributor. But she's
Speaker 3: a real doctor.
Speaker 2: And I feel like that's my that's my bark's doctor.
Speaker 1: Great go, and I imagine she will get confirmed unless
Speaker 1: the position is truly cursed, as we have speculated on
Speaker 1: earlier episodes of this podcast.
Speaker 3: Thanks for be confirmed.
Speaker 2: We have to say, all right, last question, there is
Speaker 2: an outbreak of a haunt of virus on a cruise ship.
Speaker 2: People are stuck on this cruise ship off the coast
Speaker 2: of I believe West Africa, and a lot of them
Speaker 2: have haunted virus. Please tell us what is that and
Speaker 2: should people be concerned about it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's let's do the haunt of virus primer. So.
Speaker 1: Hantavirus is an RNA virus that exists all over the world.
Speaker 1: It is carried by rodents. The rodents generally are asymptomatic,
Speaker 1: so they just kind of carried around and they leave
Speaker 1: it in their feces and urine, and then when you
Speaker 1: go to clean up feces and urine, that virus gets aerosolized.
Speaker 1: You inhale it and it can cause very severe disease
Speaker 1: in the New World. There are two main forms of hantavirus,
Speaker 1: two species. The one that we would worry about here
Speaker 1: is called Andy's virus, which is common in Argentina where
Speaker 1: the cruise ship left from. Andy's virus has two notable features.
Speaker 1: One is that it is the most lethal of the
Speaker 1: Haunt of viruses, with about a thirty to fifty percent
Speaker 1: case mortality rate. Also, it's the only Hanta virus that
Speaker 1: has been shown to be capable of transmission person to
Speaker 1: person as opposed to mause to person. Okay, that all
Speaker 1: sounds scary, but to turn this down, I'm going to
Speaker 1: turn this down just a little bit. You know, so far,
Speaker 1: I think there are only five people with conf that
Speaker 1: have symptoms. Now, three people have died from this, so
Speaker 1: I mean this is severe on the cruise ship, but
Speaker 1: it's not like the whole cruise ship was infected. I
Speaker 1: think that's important. Also, two of the people that died
Speaker 1: were husband and wife, So if there was person to
Speaker 1: person transmission, which is suspected in Andy's virus, it does
Speaker 1: require very close contact and like exchange of bodily fluids
Speaker 1: and things like that. This is not an airborne virus,
Speaker 1: so you know, the public health risk is quite low
Speaker 1: unless you're interacting extremely closely with someone who's infected. The
Speaker 1: argument to quarantine this ship is actually not strong. I
Speaker 1: don't think because of that. The risk really comes from
Speaker 1: the droppings, not from the people who are infected who
Speaker 1: need to be in hospitals and getting very close supportive care.
Speaker 1: There's no treatment, but you know they need to be
Speaker 1: an intensive care unit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, people, We're hundreds of years
Speaker 2: into people being concerned about diseases on boats being spread
Speaker 2: to the population, and so I'm not that surprised that
Speaker 2: we are quarantining this ship. I do want to say
Speaker 2: that a lot of people do get sick on cruise ships,
Speaker 2: but this is not like a major risk factor on
Speaker 2: cruise ships. The main disease you get on the cruise
Speaker 2: ship is a neural virus, which is almost one hundred
Speaker 2: percent chance of getting Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Once nora virus breaks out, it's it is
Speaker 1: all over.
Speaker 3: You're getting it. But this is rare, Although obviously scary,
Speaker 3: it does.
Speaker 1: Add to my ever growing list of reasons I never
Speaker 1: want to go on a cruise. But this is the
Speaker 1: first case I've seen of hantavirus.
Speaker 3: Don't I don't go on boats due to stomach issues.
Speaker 1: We should just say people, if you're cleaning up your
Speaker 1: house and you're worried about mouse or rat droppings, you
Speaker 1: want to spray those with a bleach containing solution before
Speaker 1: you clean them up, and ideally not vacuum because that
Speaker 1: can really aerosolize things. There is hantavirus in the US.
Speaker 1: Gene Hackman's wife died of hantavirus, although apparently there were
Speaker 1: a lot of There was a pretty bad roadent infestation
Speaker 1: in the house. So you know, be careful, but there'sn't
Speaker 1: something to panic about quite yet.
Speaker 2: Be careful, but don't panic. Yep, all right, that's it
Speaker 2: for the health news of the week. After the break.
Speaker 3: What's the deal with colostrum?
Speaker 4: This is raw colostrum so powerful it's actually banned in
Speaker 4: NC DOUBLEA. Yes, college sports banned colostrum because it contains
Speaker 4: IGF one, insulin like growth factor one. It's associated with
Speaker 4: increased muscle growth and vitality, increased levels of HDL and humans.
Speaker 4: Colostrum muscle contains a ton of different immune globulins which
Speaker 4: support the health of the gut. Also proleine rich peptides
Speaker 4: like colosterrne and that support the immune system and the thymus.
Speaker 1: This stuff is liquid gold.
Speaker 4: It's the first milk cows give to their calves and
Speaker 4: it helps program their gut and across species, mammalian milk
Speaker 4: is very healthy for humans. So if you can find
Speaker 4: somewhere to get a colostrum, probably a raw colostrum. This
Speaker 4: stuff is incredible for your gut, for your immune system,
Speaker 4: incredible for muscle growth and recovery.
Speaker 1: I love this stuff. However you can get it.
Speaker 4: Colossrum is a super food banned by the NC DOUBLEA
Speaker 4: good for me, good for you. This stuff is amazing.
Speaker 4: I'm going to go home and drink a bunch of
Speaker 4: colostrum right now.
Speaker 2: I love that clip, Perry, because I think I think
Speaker 2: it illustrates a very common wellness influencer talking point, which is,
Speaker 2: you know this is like why would they ban this
Speaker 2: if it wasn't great?
Speaker 1: I mean we've made that talking point several timetally.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm always making that point, like, you know, this
Speaker 2: must be good for performance if they ban it in
Speaker 2: professional cycling. So I'm convinced. But before we talk about
Speaker 2: how we should all be consuming the milk of that
Speaker 2: is intended for baby cows, I think we should talk
Speaker 2: about what this is and why it might be helpful.
Speaker 2: So let me start with the what it is, and
Speaker 2: then I'm going to pass to you for like what
Speaker 2: might possibly be going on, which is, you know, so
Speaker 2: bovine colostrum is the colostrum from cows literally, so it's
Speaker 2: the first milk that is produced by the female lady
Speaker 2: cow after she calves, and it has like human colostrum
Speaker 2: has a different composition than more mature human breast milk.
Speaker 2: Bovine colostrum has a different concentration of various features than
Speaker 2: mature milk. And the idea is that somehow this would
Speaker 2: be helpful for something. And I actually, relative to some
Speaker 2: of the things we talk about, those fill ins are
Speaker 2: to me very vague. This is a lot of it
Speaker 2: feels like that influencer clip where it's just a list
Speaker 2: of things that one might be interested in and how
Speaker 2: they might be good here, but with no real connection. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so is there something biologically behind anything here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always so complicated when we're talking about like
Speaker 1: a natural substance instead of a chemical or a single chemical. Right,
Speaker 1: even when we talk about something like as simple as
Speaker 1: coffee and like, oh, this study showed that you know,
Speaker 1: coffee was beneficial for X, Y or Z, And it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: well coffee is eight million different things, right, Yes, there's caffeine,
Speaker 1: but there's also all this other stuff, and it's very
Speaker 1: hard to untangle, and colossrum is no different. It is
Speaker 1: clearly a biologically very important substance. All mammals produce colostrum
Speaker 1: before they produce milk, and as you pointed out, it
Speaker 1: is quite a bit different from like, you know, the
Speaker 1: milk that comes in later, and animals that don't get
Speaker 1: colostrum from their mother early certainly do worse in a
Speaker 1: variety of ways. So it is something important. I think
Speaker 1: when I was kind of listening to you know, what
Speaker 1: influencers are talking about and people who support colostrum a lot,
Speaker 1: there's a few substances in there that kind of keep
Speaker 1: getting mentioned, and I think we'll probably want to focus
Speaker 1: on those as like the biologically relevant ones. The first
Speaker 1: is probably IGF one or insulin like growth factor one.
Speaker 1: There are anywhere between fifty and two thousand micrograms per
Speaker 1: leader of IGF one in col colostrum compared to like
Speaker 1: less than ten micrograms basically undetectable in mature cow milk.
Speaker 1: This is from the Bulgarian Journal of Veterinary Science, you know,
Speaker 1: not maybe the number one veterinary journal in.
Speaker 3: The world, not impact factor of it, okay.
Speaker 1: But actually the best study unlike the content, the actual
Speaker 1: measurements of what's in this stuff that I could find.
Speaker 1: So and I think let's if can we talk about
Speaker 1: IGF one is like, because I think this will give
Speaker 1: a framework for how to think about stuff that you eat. So,
Speaker 1: what IGF one is is the molecule that mediates the
Speaker 1: effects of growth hormone. So your pituitary gland releases growth hormone,
Speaker 1: particularly when you're growing, and downstream that tells your body
Speaker 1: to grow, tells your bones and your muscles to grow,
Speaker 1: and for you to get taller. That's what growth hormone does.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't do it itself. It doesn't act itself.
Speaker 1: It acts on the liver to release IGF one, and
Speaker 1: then igf one is the thing that tells your muscles
Speaker 1: and stuff to grow. So it's just a two step process. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's IGF one. Kids who are born with like genetic
Speaker 1: deficiencies of IGF one or growth hormone have congenital short
Speaker 1: stature syndromes, so you know, little people types of syndromes.
Speaker 1: IGF one is banned by the nc double A and
Speaker 1: the World Antidoping Association, And you can inject IGF one
Speaker 1: because it does grow muscles. It is a growth factor.
Speaker 1: In fact, there is concern about some people who are
Speaker 1: concerned about our intake of dairy point to IGF one
Speaker 1: and they're like, dairy causes cancer because of IGF one, right,
Speaker 1: because of the growth signals from IGF one. So you
Speaker 1: always get these millions of sides. But there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things we need to think about when it comes
Speaker 1: to a cow product. Number One, are we pasteurizing it.
Speaker 1: If we're pasteurizing it, some proteins lose their functionality, some don't.
Speaker 1: Number Two, can it get absorbed intact through your GI tract?
Speaker 1: And this is the big one where kind of a
Speaker 1: lot of the biological plausibility falls apart when it comes
Speaker 1: to IGF one, And this will be the case for
Speaker 1: multiple things. That's in cow colostrum. You can give it
Speaker 1: to people. In fact, it's heat stable IGF one, So
Speaker 1: you can even pasteurize this stuff and it still has
Speaker 1: IGF one in it, but it does not get into
Speaker 1: the blood. Some studies that suggest it does get into
Speaker 1: the blood see fragments of IGF one, But that's just
Speaker 1: digested stuff, it's not the actual molecule.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that this point comes up actually a
Speaker 2: lot in this space of linking. You know, this is
Speaker 2: a substance in this food to this is going to
Speaker 2: have this impact where we know the substance is something
Speaker 2: where like if you injected it ad mice, right, Really,
Speaker 2: what you're saying here is like if you take IGF
Speaker 2: one and you inject it in a mouse or even
Speaker 2: in a person, Yeah, like that's good.
Speaker 3: You know, That's why they don't let you go.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily good for you, but it'll make your
Speaker 1: muscles grow a bit. It'll make your.
Speaker 2: Muscles grow, and so you can get a super muscular
Speaker 2: mouse by injecting them with igf one. But our digestive
Speaker 2: system is not the same as injecting things.
Speaker 1: Not at all.
Speaker 2: Right, Like when you when you consume something, it goes
Speaker 2: through your stomach, and your stomach is full of acids
Speaker 2: and other stuff, and it breaks it down in all
Speaker 2: kinds of ways. And so there are many things, for example,
Speaker 2: even GLP ones, where there is a reason it's taken
Speaker 2: a long time to get to an oral GLP one
Speaker 2: because the injected version is just so much more accessible
Speaker 2: to our body.
Speaker 3: And so I actually believe if.
Speaker 2: We looked into it, there's many things in this space
Speaker 2: where that that is the link that kind of breaks
Speaker 2: when people go from here is something where we know
Speaker 2: if we injected it in a mouse, it would matter
Speaker 2: to you know, here is something you can take by mouth,
Speaker 2: because the amount that you have accessible after you consume
Speaker 2: it through your stomach is like nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's really hard, and pharmacologists spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time trying to figure out how to get
Speaker 1: your body to absorb something without digesting. It's it's just
Speaker 1: a tricky problem and it's not solved in colostrum. So
Speaker 1: I'm actually I think that like a colostrum if you
Speaker 1: dig into the NC double A rules on this. The
Speaker 1: reason they ban colostrum is actually they say that it's
Speaker 1: risky because potentially of false positives in your blood. It's
Speaker 1: like similar to how like you might not want to
Speaker 1: eat a lot of poppy seeds if you're getting like
Speaker 1: an opioid test, right, It's not because the poppy seeds
Speaker 1: make you high. It's because they have kind of similar
Speaker 1: chemical structure. You get little pieces of IGF one in
Speaker 1: your bloodstream after it's digested, But then the test that
Speaker 1: they give you is like, oh, he's using IGF one.
Speaker 2: So, in fact, perry a lot of people when they
Speaker 2: get popped for doping, the excuse is I ate a
Speaker 2: food where the animal was fed growth hormone.
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go, Yes, you know. That is why
Speaker 1: I exclusively drink milk that has been extensively treated with
Speaker 1: bovine growth growth hormone.
Speaker 2: When they test you at the end of the five
Speaker 2: K so I'm not getting tested.
Speaker 3: I just trying.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to hit the golf ball further. That's
Speaker 1: all I care about, just trying.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So when we look at the particular items in colostrum,
Speaker 2: and I think this is important to set the stage
Speaker 2: for like looking at the at the data on it,
Speaker 2: there's the growth hormones. There are a bunch of other things, immunoglobulins.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we should definitely talk about that.
Speaker 3: I will say big we should talk about all these things.
Speaker 2: But big picture, one of the issues with biological plausibility
Speaker 2: for this substance at all is that almost all these
Speaker 2: things are not really available once you eat them.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's correct, most things are digested. I'm going to
Speaker 1: like put one coin on the other side of the
Speaker 1: scale though. Let's give colostrum it's due not everything that
Speaker 1: affects your body has to get into your body, true,
Speaker 1: and so for example, immunoglobulins. Immunoglobulins are little those are antibodies,
Speaker 1: and your body makes them against certain antigens like bacteria, viruses,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. The antibodies sticky, they're each specific to
Speaker 1: one of those antigens. They stick to it, and it's
Speaker 1: sort of a signal to your body like this is
Speaker 1: a bad thing. It's marked for death, like take care
Speaker 1: of it, and the whole cascade immune cascade follows. There
Speaker 1: are different types of immunoglobulins, but one that's very relevant
Speaker 1: here is called IgA immunoglobulin A, which is the immunoglobulin
Speaker 1: that lives in your mucosal system, so in your nose, mouth, throat,
Speaker 1: and GI tract. This is the frontline immunoglobulin. It's actually
Speaker 1: secreted into the mucosa by your body and it's directed
Speaker 1: against antigens. The many different bacterian pathogens and stuff that
Speaker 1: you will get, you know, just by breathing air in
Speaker 1: a non sterile environment, by eating food that hasn't been
Speaker 1: sterilized like we always do et cetera. And colostrum contains IgA,
Speaker 1: and so that IgA can actually stick and mark some
Speaker 1: of those antigens potentially while they're sitting there in the
Speaker 1: GI tract, and it's conceivable that that would promote an
Speaker 1: immune response to some antigens. Some scientists also point out
Speaker 1: that some of these molecules, including even things like IGF one. Yes,
Speaker 1: they don't get into the blood, but they can potentially
Speaker 1: signal to the gut epithelium because those are cells, right,
Speaker 1: and like they're just half of them are sitting out there,
Speaker 1: you know, in the lumen of the GI tract, and
Speaker 1: the IGF one can kind of float by and at
Speaker 1: least act on them, And you get people saying like
Speaker 1: this promotes gut health and stuff like that. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that you're getting, like, you know, a secret
Speaker 1: way to take anabolic steroids by drinking the stuff definitely
Speaker 1: not true, but there may well be some physiologic effects.
Speaker 3: Here, Okay.
Speaker 2: So I think that that is a good place to
Speaker 2: turn to the question of what we see in the data,
Speaker 2: because I mean, always with stuff like this you can
Speaker 2: sort of start with, like, is there a biological plausibility?
Speaker 3: I think in this case, it's like a little bit maybe.
Speaker 2: But then the question is when you look into people,
Speaker 2: are we actually seeing any any impacts and the outcomes
Speaker 2: here that there are actually two groups we can talk
Speaker 2: about them in turn. The first is there's actually a
Speaker 2: lot of work on this in athletes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, my favorite. And then you're about to work
Speaker 3: on people.
Speaker 1: To actual people. Okay, I like that, there's athletes.
Speaker 3: People, not elite maile cyclists.
Speaker 2: And then and sort of we're looking at like something
Speaker 2: about inflammation the gut, maybe performance, maybe respiratory viruses. Part
Speaker 2: of what's hard here is the range of outcomes that
Speaker 2: we're looking at are so broad that it feels like
Speaker 2: like how could it possibly how could this thing possibly
Speaker 2: matter for all of these Yeah, it's a problem.
Speaker 1: And of course, because there's so much stuff in colostrum,
Speaker 1: there's always going to be a biologically plausible route, right,
Speaker 1: Like you're given all these lego pieces and you can
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I can make a car, and I
Speaker 1: can make a boat and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: So just so it's always a just so story. You
Speaker 2: can sort of say, Okay, I'm going to look for
Speaker 2: this in the data. Maybe I'm going to like pee
Speaker 2: haack a little bit through a bunch of different outcomes
Speaker 2: and then I'm going to make up a story for
Speaker 2: why the particular peptide that's in this matters for that.
Speaker 3: So I think that's a that is a caution with
Speaker 3: everything we will say here.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, But you know, I as I was looking through this,
Speaker 1: I definitely saw, you know, a number of trials in
Speaker 1: these athletes, and all I could think reading them was like,
Speaker 1: I've got to get Emily's take on this, So can
Speaker 1: you can you walk me through how you, as an
Speaker 1: athlete can talk to me as a human about the
Speaker 1: data here.
Speaker 2: So what I really like about studying athletes, and what
Speaker 2: I think researchers like, is that you know the outcome
Speaker 2: you are looking for and it's very easy to measure.
Speaker 2: So like an example of a study, it's like a study.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty old study from the British Journal of
Speaker 2: Sports Medicine, but it's like very consistent with this whole
Speaker 2: research space.
Speaker 1: And we love the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Speaker 3: That's actually very good journal, Yes it is.
Speaker 2: So this is like we take they take twenty nine
Speaker 2: highly trained mail road cyclist.
Speaker 3: That's everybody's favorite.
Speaker 2: Everybody loves a highly trained mail road cyclist and then
Speaker 2: you stick them on the bike and you have them
Speaker 2: do time trials, and then you give them some colostrum
Speaker 2: and some not colostrum, and or in this case, I
Speaker 2: think it was some of the time they had the
Speaker 2: colostrum and sometime they didn't. There's all kinds of like
Speaker 2: detailed ways you can control this, and then they look
Speaker 2: at whether their time trial VO two max performs. It's
Speaker 2: just like there's a lot of outcomes you can very
Speaker 2: clearly measure, and so in a set of studies like this,
Speaker 2: you do see you know, some impacts on performance, maybe
Speaker 2: some impacts on respiratory illness. In some of this we
Speaker 2: see a little bit in like recovery for runners, you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of it's a lot of cyclists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to put numbers on this, and I
Speaker 1: don't know how good this is, but I'm hoping you do.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the British Jurnal Sports Medicine study. They
Speaker 1: did a forty kilometer time trial either on colostrum or
Speaker 1: on like way, protein was the control, I think, and
Speaker 1: their performance improved by two percent versus baseline. Like to
Speaker 1: me as a human that is not an athlete, two percent.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that doesn't sound like great at all, But
Speaker 1: is that actually something where it's like, dude, like, if
Speaker 1: you're an elite male cyclist, this is the difference between
Speaker 1: first and second place, Like, like, what are you talking
Speaker 1: about here?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean so look, two percent is there's two ways
Speaker 2: to think about two percent. One is to say, like,
Speaker 2: if you're at the end of the Tour de France
Speaker 2: and you're trying you're like Yones Vanago and you're trying
Speaker 2: to get toddy pigatcha at the top of the you
Speaker 2: know called the blob andy blah, like, you would take
Speaker 2: a point. Those are people need to go and ty
Speaker 2: pigacha people. I don't know which call the call is,
Speaker 2: you know, Okay, anyway, you would take like a half.
Speaker 3: I mean that's that's the difference.
Speaker 2: These guys are are biking for one hundreds and hundreds
Speaker 2: of miles and winning by four seconds.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: For more regular people, I think two percent is pretty good.
Speaker 2: It's like not as good as it's not as much
Speaker 2: as the benefit you'd get from really like ramping up
Speaker 2: your fueling, which is like a sort of core element
Speaker 2: of improving your your performance. But it's like that's like
Speaker 2: a solid like people would take is people who love,
Speaker 2: people who are highly.
Speaker 3: Trained mail Roadsnichles, but definitely take two percent.
Speaker 1: Okay, So that sort of confirms my impression, which you know,
Speaker 1: there are several studies like this where you see, you know,
Speaker 1: relatively small studies, relatively small effects sizes, and I think
Speaker 1: we do need to say to people that that raises
Speaker 1: your eyebrows a little bit from a data science perspective.
Speaker 1: In part that's because of publication bias, So just as
Speaker 1: worth saying that, Like, if you conduct a study in
Speaker 1: twenty people and the results are negative, it's just hard
Speaker 1: to get it published, like I've been there, by the way,
Speaker 1: And you submit it to a journal and they're like this,
Speaker 1: like why we don't care, Like nothing happened. You only
Speaker 1: enroll twenty people. Like if you enrolled one thousand and
Speaker 1: nothing happened, then you know, sure we'll publish that because
Speaker 1: that's a big study. But for twenty no, not really.
Speaker 1: But if you enroll twenty people and you do see
Speaker 1: a modest effect, or even a tiny effect, but you
Speaker 1: know that passes statistical significant special you're much more likely
Speaker 1: to get it published. So we do kind of want
Speaker 1: to the meta analytic things we think about here is
Speaker 1: like if we're seeing all if we're seeing several studies
Speaker 1: but they're all very small, we worry a little bit
Speaker 1: about this, about this issue of publication bias. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you know, hey, if you're an elite mail cyclist and
Speaker 1: this is how you make your living, you know, seems
Speaker 1: like you can give it a shot. I suppose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I find yeah, maybe, I mean I
Speaker 2: think I think the publication bias piece here is pretty
Speaker 2: pretty important.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, you got to say it right, Yes,
Speaker 1: the literature is not perfect.
Speaker 2: This is a place where you know, we like, I
Speaker 2: think the really great next step if one was really
Speaker 2: interested in this is to say, okay, let's take these theories,
Speaker 2: like we've got a bunch of data that would suggest
Speaker 2: particular outcomes that have been seen before. Let's redo with
Speaker 2: a larger sample looking at those outcomes, which would get
Speaker 2: away from p hacking, like you're just choosing your outcomes
Speaker 2: based on which one's work and would get away from
Speaker 2: some of the publication bias if you could kind of
Speaker 2: pre register.
Speaker 3: But I don't know, I think what's we can get
Speaker 3: into the people thing.
Speaker 2: What's hard here is like, I have no idea why
Speaker 2: this would matter, Like, nothing in the biology of this
Speaker 2: substance would suggest that it connects to It's not like
Speaker 2: protein or creatine or something where you could say, okay,
Speaker 2: I can see mechanistically why this matters for a performance.
Speaker 3: Is just sort of like it's just like a really good
Speaker 3: protein shake.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's just kind of like good humors in it.
Speaker 1: And you know, these dudies were controlled for protein and
Speaker 1: take by giving way protein. So so yeah, we like
Speaker 1: some plausibility, and I think actually the place that has
Speaker 1: more plausibility is in the data looking at like respiratory infection. Yeah, rates,
Speaker 1: so this is a place where we actually have some
Speaker 1: larger trials also kind of relatively on the on the
Speaker 1: old side. But the reason I think there's some biologic
Speaker 1: plausibility goes back to that immunoglobulin A phenomenon. So again,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're putting something in your in your
Speaker 1: GI tract that has a lot of immiglobulin A in it,
Speaker 1: and presumably these cows are making immunoglobulins against at least
Speaker 1: some of the same pathogens that you know humans are
Speaker 1: exposed to, maybe that can rev up your immune system.
Speaker 1: So I'll highlight one study because it was relatively large,
Speaker 1: from the European Journal of Nutrition, also old two thousand
Speaker 1: and three. They took one hundred and seventy four adult men.
Speaker 1: This actually it was a little bit a little bit
Speaker 1: of a weird design. They created this study out of
Speaker 1: other randomized trials of colostrum versus WAY and just look
Speaker 1: to see who reported as an adverse effect upper respiratory symptom.
Speaker 1: So this wasn't the primary outcome, so it like it
Speaker 1: is randomized, but they're kind of like they're they're like
Speaker 1: convenience looking at the outcome. And over the seven weeks
Speaker 1: that they looked at, thirty two percent of the colosstrum
Speaker 1: subjects reported some upper respiratory tract symptoms could be anything
Speaker 1: from a running nose to a sore throat versus forty
Speaker 1: eight percent in those who are getting WAY protein. So
Speaker 1: and that was a significant decline, you know, And there
Speaker 1: are sort of other studies that go along this line.
Speaker 1: There's even been some studies in medical people like who
Speaker 1: are exposed you know, presumably exposed to there's the.
Speaker 2: Study in preschool children who are exposed to talk to
Speaker 2: me about even more oh my god.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So there is a like six week long study of
Speaker 2: colostrum in preschool children. It's relatively small, it's like sixty kids,
Speaker 2: fifty seven kids, and they randomized kids into colossum versus
Speaker 2: not and there was a reduction in days with upper
Speaker 2: respiratory symptoms thirty one percent, which is large.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not parents.
Speaker 2: Parents would definitely take that when they are parenting preschool children.
Speaker 2: So so, yeah, we do see this in a number
Speaker 2: of different settings. I will say I am still worried
Speaker 2: about the pe hacking and the small samples and the
Speaker 2: publication bias.
Speaker 3: I think I just I'm still worried about that here.
Speaker 1: It's always going to be the case when we have
Speaker 1: multiple small studies. That preschool study also had parental reported outcomes,
Speaker 1: which I don't know. You're not going to ask the
Speaker 1: kids obviously, but that does open the door. You know.
Speaker 1: This isn't like they were tested in some way for
Speaker 1: you know, viral carriage in their nose or something that
Speaker 1: was objective. This is a subjective perception of if the
Speaker 1: kid is doing better, and if blinding is inadequate, like
Speaker 1: if there's if the parents had any way to tell like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is my kid's getting colostrum versus my kids getting
Speaker 1: way protein, then that can kind of bias the results.
Speaker 1: So there's just you know, this is this is medium
Speaker 1: to load to medium quality d pointing in a direction,
Speaker 1: and there is some biologic plausibility here, but we do
Speaker 1: have to be really careful in interpretation.
Speaker 2: Why can I ask you before we get to the
Speaker 2: second piece of this, which is the like gut health,
Speaker 2: leaky gut my favorite topic, why do you think we
Speaker 2: do not have larger scale trials here? I mean, I
Speaker 2: understand why maybe we don't have larger scale trials in
Speaker 2: sports because people don't.
Speaker 3: Care that much.
Speaker 2: But you know, let's say there was something that you
Speaker 2: could give your kid that would cause a thirty one
Speaker 2: percent decrease in upper respiratory infections. Like that seems pretty important.
Speaker 2: And so I'm a little bit confused. And it's not
Speaker 2: like the studies were published in twenty twenty five. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: somebody is doing that, Like, what do you think is
Speaker 2: in the way of what we'd really want here, large
Speaker 2: scale randomized control trial really evaluating this?
Speaker 1: Yeah, in money is the is the answer. So you know,
Speaker 1: colostrum is recognized by the FDA's a dietary supplement. So
Speaker 1: that has two implications. Number one, it doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be vetted. They have to adhere to certain good manufacturing practices.
Speaker 1: But it's not like tested by the FDA. There's no
Speaker 1: they don't need to prove that it's efficacious or that
Speaker 1: it is safe. It's generally recognized as safe. It's like
Speaker 1: a food product, which means there's really no moat, like
Speaker 1: anyone can sell colostrum. And so you know, in theory,
Speaker 1: if you you know, if you're a big pharmaceutical company
Speaker 1: that's going to fund a multimillion dollar trial, you want
Speaker 1: to be able to sell your thing for more money
Speaker 1: at least into your patent runs out, and that's not
Speaker 1: possible here. What can happen and the way this often
Speaker 1: works when there are signals from natural substances is that
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical companies will go in and like try to pull
Speaker 1: out what molecules might be meeting this effect, and then
Speaker 1: you know patent and do a trial on that molecule.
Speaker 1: That often doesn't work because you know, and it's not
Speaker 1: because there's like a magical combination of things, and you
Speaker 1: need the magical combination to work like a LAH original
Speaker 1: Michael and Batman, Hello, gen X, how are you today?
Speaker 3: Good?
Speaker 1: Good? It's that you are often wrong about the substance
Speaker 1: that you've like put your nickel down on. So I
Speaker 1: think that's the that's the main problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think I totally agree that's the
Speaker 3: main problem.
Speaker 2: This is one of my frustrations with like the ANIH
Speaker 2: and other like government funders, because.
Speaker 3: I feel like, yeah, they could do this, they could
Speaker 3: do this.
Speaker 2: They could just be like, you know what, Farma is
Speaker 2: not going to do this, you know, fharmas it's not
Speaker 2: a hill to make your penis grow faster or whatever,
Speaker 2: which presumably Pharma is into. It is something that couldn't
Speaker 2: potentially improve a lot of people's lives, and we could
Speaker 2: we the NIH could fund someone to run this child,
Speaker 2: which wouldn't, actually, by the way, be that expensive. It's
Speaker 2: like how I feel about breast milk storage, and I
Speaker 2: have a lot of feelings about the things the NIH.
Speaker 1: And this actually feels kind of aligned with the MAHA agenda, right,
Speaker 1: It's like this is a natural thing. And you could
Speaker 1: even imagine a whole NIH institute who's like, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: going to test the stuff that like no one else
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's widely available, that's not patented. And
Speaker 1: if it doesn't work, fine, great, we learned something. And
Speaker 1: if it does work, we have this great new public
Speaker 1: health intervention that is widely accessible. To totally agree, it
Speaker 1: seems like a great use of that.
Speaker 3: I agree, Jay Boudicharia.
Speaker 2: Jay, if you're still talking to me after the interview
Speaker 2: I did with you last week, I have some This
Speaker 2: is my suggestion.
Speaker 1: Make it happen, Jay, doctor Jay.
Speaker 3: Jay, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, So let's talk about the last sort
Speaker 2: of set of big things that come up in colostrum,
Speaker 2: which is leeky gut intestinal permeability.
Speaker 3: H lee, hey gut. It's so popular with the wellness influencers.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants it. Where is it leaking? To Perry, where's
Speaker 3: it going?
Speaker 1: It's god, the wellness influencer marketing is so much better
Speaker 1: than like everyone else. Leaky gut sounds terrible. Talked about
Speaker 1: glucose spikes before, like it's really good. It's no one
Speaker 1: wants a leaky gut. Okay. First of all, it's very
Speaker 1: important that your gut is leaky, because if nothing got
Speaker 1: through your gut, you would die. So let's set the
Speaker 1: table here. Intestinal permeability is the medical term for what's
Speaker 1: going on, and your intestine is supposed to be permeable
Speaker 1: to a wide variety of things amano acids, proteins, glucose,
Speaker 1: other substances, et cetera. That's what your gut is for.
Speaker 2: This is because as the food moves through your small intestine,
Speaker 2: that's when the stuff comes out of it. It goes
Speaker 2: through your small intestine and stuff comes out and goes
Speaker 2: into your bloodstream, and that's how you get nutrients.
Speaker 1: That's correct, and you want that. Now you can measure
Speaker 1: intestinal permeability in the lab. What you do is you
Speaker 1: give someone a dose of some substance that should not
Speaker 1: be absorbed very well, like something like mannitol for example.
Speaker 1: It's like a poorly absorbed sugar type of thing, and
Speaker 1: then you measure it in their blood. And you can
Speaker 1: certainly show that there's variation across people, like some people
Speaker 1: they take the manson like there's more in their blood
Speaker 1: and some people there's less. And scientists have shown that
Speaker 1: people with comorbid condition like people who are sicker, often
Speaker 1: have a leak your gut.
Speaker 2: By that definition, it means more stuff that should not
Speaker 2: be getting through is getting through.
Speaker 1: It's not even necessarily that should not be getting through.
Speaker 1: It's just like that usually doesn't get through, if you
Speaker 1: appreciate sort of where I'm going with that. But there's
Speaker 1: this real causality problem here, right, Like a lot of
Speaker 1: wellness people be like, oh, no, it's your leaky gut
Speaker 1: that causes the diabetes or the cancer or the dementia
Speaker 1: or like whatever it is, as opposed to it's the
Speaker 1: diabetes or the cancer or the dementia that causes the
Speaker 1: leaky gut, and we don't know the difference there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's sort of I mean, another way to
Speaker 2: say this is like, even if colassroom were to fix
Speaker 2: your leaky gut, it isn't really obvious that the leaky
Speaker 2: gut itself is really a particular issue. It is just
Speaker 2: a thing we see rising that is higher among people
Speaker 2: with certain conditions, but also in other like this is
Speaker 2: like a problem and that athletes have, like you stress,
Speaker 2: your body.
Speaker 1: Stuff gets absolutely Now in the medical space, there is
Speaker 1: this phenomenon called bacterial translocation, where someone comes in with
Speaker 1: a bloodstream infection with bacteria. This is bad. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: want this, this is sepsis sepsis, And when someone comes
Speaker 1: in with that, we zoom around and we look for
Speaker 1: what the source of the infection is and we identify
Speaker 1: the infection. We're like, Okay, is there a skin lesion
Speaker 1: that spread to the blood? Is do they have pneumonia
Speaker 1: that spread to the blood? Like where did it come from?
Speaker 1: And every once in a while you cannot find the source.
Speaker 1: And if it's a gut organism like E. Coli that's
Speaker 1: in the blood, all you're left with is like did
Speaker 1: the E. Coal I like escape from the gut? And
Speaker 1: you know, bacteria are a lot bigger than glucose molecules, right,
Speaker 1: so like they should bacteria should not be translocating the gut,
Speaker 1: but in very stressful situations it can. And the reason
Speaker 1: I'm mentioning this is because of one study looking at
Speaker 1: this phenomenon actually in sixty two children who had newly
Speaker 1: diagnosed leukemia, all leukemia. And one of the problems when
Speaker 1: you're getting chemotherapy, you know, pretty intense chemotherapy like this,
Speaker 1: is that you can affect the intestinal lining and you
Speaker 1: can get bacterial translocation. And if these kids get sepsis,
Speaker 1: they're in big trouble. We don't want that to happen.
Speaker 1: So anything you could put in there to like prevent
Speaker 1: bacteria from getting out would be great. So they randomize
Speaker 1: these kids to or bovine colostrum while they were getting
Speaker 1: that induction chemotherapy versus a control, and they were looking
Speaker 1: at fever as well as bacteremia, and there was no
Speaker 1: difference in fever or infection rates. They look at fever,
Speaker 1: by the way, as a marker of like maybe the
Speaker 1: bacteria got in, but then you thought it off before
Speaker 1: we detected it and like caused a fever response. So
Speaker 1: no difference in fever or infection rates, but there was
Speaker 1: a secondary outcome that was positive. Here some called mucusitis,
Speaker 1: which are like these ulcers that develop in the mouth
Speaker 1: with intensive chemotherapy. It's incredible painful. That was improved by
Speaker 1: the colostrum. And so I'm setting this in terms of,
Speaker 1: like this is the leakiest gut you can have where
Speaker 1: you're actually worried about bacterial translocation causing you know, sepsis
Speaker 1: and death. Colostrum is not preventing that phenomenon. That's our
Speaker 1: starting point. Now we can kind of walk this back
Speaker 1: to maybe your average everyday person who's worried about, you know,
Speaker 1: their own gut health.
Speaker 2: And when we walk it back there, I would say
Speaker 2: there is a bit of evidence. Again, the evidence probably
Speaker 2: stronger in sports than in nonsports. You know, the to
Speaker 2: the extent that the stress of like intense exercise increases
Speaker 2: the permeability of the gut, which we know that it does.
Speaker 2: This seems to some extent truncate that that rise and
Speaker 2: so kind of I don't know, seal off the gut
Speaker 2: a little bit, I guess, which is interesting, and I
Speaker 2: guess is potentially some of the mechanism for some of
Speaker 2: the performance effects, although I'm not sure why that would
Speaker 2: why that would be.
Speaker 1: I don't either. I just I don't know why leaky
Speaker 1: gut is is bad.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, I think there's a fundamental thing which
Speaker 2: is outside of this kind of setting that you're talking
Speaker 2: about with with you know, kids who are very sick,
Speaker 2: where this could potentially lead, Like it's not really clear
Speaker 2: why you would care about fixing this, why you would
Speaker 2: care if you had it, why you would care about
Speaker 2: fixing it if you were an otherwise healthy person. So
Speaker 2: observing that this fixes that, Okay.
Speaker 1: It's not enough you've got it. You've gone from A
Speaker 1: to B. That's great. Now go from B to scene.
Speaker 1: Now show me that you have improved, you know, exercise performance,
Speaker 1: and then hey, there's there's a little bit of that.
Speaker 1: This is a potential mechanism, but again, small effects sizes
Speaker 1: in small studies they do.
Speaker 2: You know, they look at like diarrhea in some ill patients,
Speaker 2: which were kind of interesting, and they saw some reduction
Speaker 2: actually quite a large, small study of quite a large
Speaker 2: reduction in diarrheal events among HIV patients in Uganda. So
Speaker 2: there's a few pieces here of kind of yeah, potentially
Speaker 2: interesting outcomes, but.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say it's overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is, it's definitely not. And there's studies that
Speaker 1: don't show improvements in diarrhea. They did a study of
Speaker 1: kids with shigella infection, which is an unpleasant bacterial diarrhea illness,
Speaker 1: and no difference with the colostrum. We need to talk
Speaker 1: about safety because upfront, that guy was holding if you're
Speaker 1: watching this on a video, this big jar of bovine colostrum,
Speaker 1: raw and unpasteurized.
Speaker 2: I will say the reason the influencers like the unpasteurized
Speaker 2: colostrum is that there are some elements of glossrum that
Speaker 2: would be killed by pastor is it like some of
Speaker 2: these elements that might be killed by pasteurization. So if
Speaker 2: you're a true and wellness influencer here, you are into
Speaker 2: the raw colostrum. Although I will say all of these
Speaker 2: studies would be using pasteurized colostrum powder, which is in
Speaker 2: the study okay, correct.
Speaker 1: And moreover, even the things that are heard by pasteurization,
Speaker 1: even the things that are in activated by pasturization, still
Speaker 1: don't make it into your blood in the right in
Speaker 1: the raw form. So okay, and what Emily, what else
Speaker 1: is killed by pasteurization?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's ecoli and other bacteria that make
Speaker 2: you really sick. And the reason that we don't recommend
Speaker 2: people drink raw milk or raw colostrum is that it
Speaker 2: can be and often is tremendously full of bacteria that
Speaker 2: will make you very sick. And if you are taking
Speaker 2: this colostrum so you don't have a lot of diarrhea,
Speaker 2: you are also putting yourself at risk for quite a
Speaker 2: lot of diarrhea from the ecolib it may be lurking
Speaker 2: in your colostrum and also other things.
Speaker 3: It's not just eqaly other things.
Speaker 1: Yep, I'll put some numbers on it for you. Journal
Speaker 1: of Dairy Science twenty twenty one. They looked at twelve
Speaker 1: one hundred and forty one colostrum samples from thirty nine
Speaker 1: Czech dairy farms. The average count of bacteria per plate
Speaker 1: that they put the colostrum on was four hundred and
Speaker 1: eight thousand colony forming units per milli liter, and only
Speaker 1: twenty eight point four percent met the recommended threshold for
Speaker 1: bacteria levels, which is less than one hundred thousand colony
Speaker 1: farming units per milliliter. A study in Northern Ireland a
Speaker 1: few years earlier than that found that eighty one percent
Speaker 1: of raw colostrum samples exceeded industry bacterial contamination guidelines. So
Speaker 1: chances are there's quite a bit of ecali and other
Speaker 1: nasties in the colostrum if it hasn't been pasteurized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's some evidence we also have some of these
Speaker 2: in the dried commercial products as well, so it's not
Speaker 2: it's not only the raw milk colostrums that are impacted anyway.
Speaker 3: This is you should be careful about your colostrum.
Speaker 1: Definitely. Do you want to touch briefly Emily on like
Speaker 1: this might be the bleeding heart in me here, but like,
Speaker 1: what about these baby cows, Like, isn't it for them?
Speaker 3: It is for them?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think what the people who produce both
Speaker 2: my colostrum will say is that an individual cow produces
Speaker 2: far more colosterrum than a calf needs. I think the
Speaker 2: counter point is like, but why, that's not how evolution works?
Speaker 2: You know, why are they producing all this extra colostrum?
Speaker 2: So I get this definitely comes up in people's concerns. Again,
Speaker 2: I think you make the same complaint about milk.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't, though, because milk, as long as you keep
Speaker 1: milking a cow, they'll keep making milk even after the
Speaker 1: calf doesn't.
Speaker 3: The colossrum is more limited, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Colostrum is like time limited, and think of how cute
Speaker 1: the baby cows are. Are you considering that aspect from
Speaker 1: a data point of.
Speaker 3: View, I'm considering it people.
Speaker 2: Probably the people whore eating the raw colostrum are also
Speaker 2: eating veal, you.
Speaker 1: Think, so I feel like that ven diagram does not
Speaker 1: overlap for I think you're wrong.
Speaker 2: I think you are wrong. I guess we could look
Speaker 2: at the data listeners.
Speaker 1: Are you both veal and raw colostrum.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, Perry, smash your pass on colostrum.
Speaker 1: I am a pass on colostrum. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: if this is not the way I want to spend
Speaker 1: my fifty bucks some month and what I want to be,
Speaker 1: you know, mixing into my shakes in the morning, there's
Speaker 1: other better stuff. I'm a pass. How about you, Emily
Speaker 1: smash pass Okay, I.
Speaker 2: Am actually a soft smash, And I will say I
Speaker 2: do have this. I do call after all of this,
Speaker 2: after all of this, this is an example of some
Speaker 2: thing where I think, if you are an athlete who
Speaker 2: has GI problems, I believe this might be worth a
Speaker 2: self experimentation because I think some of the evidence is
Speaker 2: a little suggestive. I wouldn't recommend it is a general rule,
Speaker 2: but I'm I guess I'm a soft soft smash.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll give it to you. Are you an athlete
Speaker 1: with GI problems? And do you feel like it's helped
Speaker 1: your athleticism or GI problem?
Speaker 2: Yes, I am an athlete with GI problems, and no
Speaker 2: I don't think that it helps me.
Speaker 3: But I am not sorry that I tried it.
Speaker 2: Okay, it turns out what helps is not eating too
Speaker 2: much salad for dinner. We can get into that another
Speaker 2: at another time, or perhaps never, Perhaps we can never
Speaker 2: get into that.
Speaker 1: Well, not eating salad is cheaper than buying colostrum.
Speaker 3: Totally, totally. Salad has too much fiber. That's the problem. Anyway,
Speaker 3: there we go.
Speaker 2: All right, that is it for colostrum. Your mail back
Speaker 2: question of the week after the break.
Speaker 3: Hi dad at all? This is a liar.
Speaker 2: Why do people sneeze when they look at the sun?
Speaker 1: This is a question from my own home. That's my
Speaker 1: daughter writing the question. This happens to her, Emily. Are
Speaker 1: you a photic sneezer?
Speaker 3: The I'm not a photo sneezer? Are you? Is it genetic?
Speaker 1: I am not, but my wife is. And there is
Speaker 1: in fact a genetic condition called autosomal dominant compelling helio
Speaker 1: ophthalmic outburst or the ACHU syndrome, which you made that up.
Speaker 1: I did not. I mean that it is a It
Speaker 1: is a real genetic syndrome, maybe a bit more dramatic
Speaker 1: than what people are thinking about. These are people who
Speaker 1: will have a series of like ten sneezes in response
Speaker 1: to bright light, which is not what like my daughter
Speaker 1: or my wife has. You know what most people I've
Speaker 1: experienced is going into bright light and you have like
Speaker 1: a sneeze or two. This has been recognized for centuries
Speaker 1: and centuries. I think like I think like Aristotle or
Speaker 1: something like this wrote about it, and it's not fully understood.
Speaker 1: People think that it is a little cross talk between
Speaker 1: your optic nerve and your ophthalmic nerve. So the nerves
Speaker 1: from your eyes and the nerve coming from your nose,
Speaker 1: and like the bright light kind of like goes your
Speaker 1: optic nerve a little bit, and that kind of jazz
Speaker 1: is your ophthalmic nerve in some people, and you just
Speaker 1: like sneeze out of confusion.
Speaker 3: That is totally fascinating.
Speaker 2: And so it's autosomal dominant, which means that it is strong.
Speaker 3: That would be a strong genetically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would mean that if one of your parents
Speaker 1: has it, you have a fifty percent chance of inheriting it.
Speaker 2: That is totally fascinating. And I had no idea. The
Speaker 2: only thing makes me sneeze is pollen.
Speaker 1: Oh well, it's been it's been rough this year.
Speaker 2: It's been a bad year for sneezing. I choose syndrome fantastic,
Speaker 2: all right, that is it for us today? Stick with
Speaker 2: us next week when we will ask what's the deal
Speaker 2: with psychedelics? I'm excited, but I will say I don't
Speaker 2: have these in my cabinet, Perry, so I won't have
Speaker 2: as much personal experience. Wellness Actually is produced in association
Speaker 2: with iHeartMedia. Our senior producer is Tamar Avisheik. Our executive
Speaker 2: producer at iHeart is Jennifer Bassett. Our theme music is
Speaker 2: by Eric Deutsch, and our content is for educational purposes only.
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