Breast milk for adults: wellness elixir or unscientific fascination?
Researchers have found more promising ways the infant food can benefit health – aside from being a nutritional supplement and supposed hangover cure
P eople have used breast milk for reasons other than feeding babies for a very long time. In the first century, Pliny the Elder recommended it for fever, gout and healing from poisonous beetles. In 17th- and 18th-century England and America, breast milk was prescribed for ailments ranging from consumption to blindness.
Historically, the mammary gland has been “highly understudied and underappreciated”, says Lars Bode, a professor and founding director of the Human Milk Institute at University of California San Diego.
There is a stigma around breast milk. The American Academy of Pediatrics observed that mothers in the United States who breastfeed beyond a year often report feeling ridiculed or alienated because of it.
“Human milk is not made for adults,” says Bode. “But that doesn’t mean that there can’t be potential benefits of certain components of it.”
