Wellness influencers, celebrities, and social media content creators are touting the benefits of bovine colostrum supplements.
Nicknamed “liquid gold,” these supplements are made from the first milk a cow produces after giving birth.
“It’s filled with antibodies, proteins, carbohydrates, and fats that help newborn calves strengthen their immune system, grow, and stay healthy,” explains Maddie Pasquariello, MS, RDN.
Humans also produce colostrum after giving birth, with the first thick breast milk also containing nutrients and antibodies that nourish and protect newborns from infections.
Yet bovine colostrum and human colostrum are not the same.
“To put it simply, human colostrum has evolved to benefit a human infant, and bovine colostrum to benefit a bovine animal,” Pasquariello says. “Bovine colostrum contains IgG…as the dominant immunoglobulin, while in human colostrum, IgA is the most prevalent. Bovine colostrum is overall higherTrusted Source in immunoglobulins, lactoferrin, and total protein content.”
Nevertheless, bovine colostrum supplements are growing in popularity. The substance is claimed to provide several health benefits, including strengthening immunity, improving gut health, boosting athletic performance, and aiding recovery.
However, unlike the benefits of human colostrum for human newborns, the data and evolutionary evidence supporting bovine colostrum for human adults are mixed, limited, or non-existent, according to dietitians and researchers.
Here’s what we know about the evidence supporting the most commonly touted health benefits of bovine colostrum.
Strengthen immunity
Bovine colostrum contains immuno-active compounds, explains Lacy Puttuck, MS, RDN, a registered dietitian with Top Nutrition Coaching. Puttuck says these include:
- Enzymes
- Cytokines
- Immunoglobulins
Puttuck points to a narrative review from 2024Trusted Source that included data on newborns through adults aged 69, suggesting that bovine colostrum supplementation might increase the ability to fight respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.
Much older researchTrusted Source from 2006 on 35 male distance runners suggested participants who were supplemented with bovine colostrum had more immune biomarkers and reported fewer upper respiratory symptoms.
However, the study was small, involved one population and sex, and relied on self-reported symptom data.
Additionally, improved biomarkers (collected using saliva samples) don’t necessarily mean
