I am thinking of taking bovine colosstrum for weight gain. Is it a good supplement? I remember reading in T-Mag that Poliquin gets his athletes who have trouble gaining weight to supplement with it. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
colostrum came and went a few years back.I have not heard of anyone who believed they ever got anything out of it.
I haven’t used colostrum, but once considered it. Some say it is amazing, others don’t see a difference. If you do go ahead and supplement with colostrum, let us know what you think.
I’ve heard its more to boost your immune system then to grow. I’ve used it and did notice that while using never ever got sick while around other people with colds and flu and stuff but never noticed any extra muscle growth. It may help recovery though as a symptom of over training is reduced immune system and like I said I never got sick like other people while using it. I believe if you are going to try it, you need to use big doses several times a day just like using glutamine and should be taken on empty stomach to be asorbed like 1st thing in AM and last in PM. Also, tastes like shit - real bad sour milk and cann’t mask taste. I bought mine from www.beyond-a-century.com in bulk and mixed it with glutamine for a small gross shake. 200 grams was $16.50. I’ve heard you can go to a farm supply store also where they sell it for orphaned or sick calves in big bags cheap but don’t know if that is fit for human comsumption or not. probably same as eating cat food (tuna?)
Colostrum is as old as motherhood. It is the first mammary secretion provided for newborns in the first 24 hours until, at most, 72 hours prior to the onset of genuine lactation. The formulation of colostrum is much more complex than simple milk, and its components are not found in such high concentrations anywhere else in nature (Kuhne, 2000, Kishikawa, 1996). There exist several major components to colostrum, two of which are currently undergoing vigorous investigation. These are: the growth factor fraction (IGF1) and the immunoglobulin fraction. A third remaining fraction contains enzymes, proteins, odd peptides and other compounds of lesser interest to athletes (Mero, 1997, Pakkanen, 1997).
There is evidence to suggest that the IGF-1 in colostrum may stimulate cellular (muscle) growth (Kuhne, 2000, Kishikawa, 1996). The current hypothesis is that the combination of high quality proteins and IGF1 found in colostrum may optimally stimulate muscle building and thus strength and power (Buckley, 2001).
In a double blind, placebo-controlled study, (neither athletes nor researchers knew who was getting colostrum or placebo), 39 fit young men (ages 18-35) completed an eight-week running program (running three times a week for 45 minutes per session). They consumed 60 grams per day of either a colostrum or a placebo (whey protein). At the start, and again at four and eight weeks, all subjects did two treadmill runs to exhaustion, with 20 minutes rest between runs. At the beginning of the study, no differences existed in treadmill running performance. At Week 4, both groups had improved similarly in treadmill running performance; however, at Week 8, the colostrum group ran farther than the placebo group (4,662 meters vs. 4,237 meters; a 10% difference).
Furthermore, the colostrum-supplemented group showed a trend toward reduced serum creatine kinase levels. Creatine kinase is a critically important muscle-cell enzyme, which some experts believe can be used as a marker of muscle-cell damage. If blood creatine kinase concentrations rocket upward, it’s often a sign that significant muscle damage has occurred. On the other hand, if creatine kinase levels stay fairly normal, some researchers believe that an individual has not experienced much muscle trauma.
Both groups lost body fat, but the colostrum-fed group lost slightly more (1.8 pounds vs. 1.5 pounds). So colostrum, in combination with a mild running program, appears to slightly improve performance, potentially reduce muscle breakdown and augment the loss of body fat.
In another recent double-blind, placebo-controlled study investigated the effect of 8 weeks of supplementation with colostrum on a number of measures of functional high muscle power output (5 X 10-meter sprint and vertical jump) and endurance run in a group of elite female and male field hockey players, including players from the Dutch national team. All subjects consumed either 60 grams per day of colostrum protein powder or whey protein powder during the first 8 weeks of competition season. There were no significant differences between the colostrum and the whey group in improvement in the endurance tests during the 8 weeks of supplementation. However, the improvement in the 5 X 10-meter sprint test was significantly better in the colostrum group compared to the whey group (Smeets, 2000).
There was a strong trend for a better improvement in jump performance in the colostrum group compared to the whey group. In elite field hockey players, colostrum supplementation does seem to improve performance in high muscle power output better than whey, whereas in endurance-type exercises there is no difference in improvement between groups (Smeets, 2000).