What a load of sh1te – You can only absorb the immune components of colostrum in teh first 24-248 hours of birth – it gives a baby short lived protective immunity from pathogens until their immune system matures enough to produce them itself – I have never heard such a load of cr@p in my life – even worse than sugary probiotic drinks!!

Quote on their website “Immune response: This information is not allowed to viewed online as the description of the health benefits of foodstuffs is restricted under EU regulations 1924/2006.”

Bitty! 😯

foxy your posts are getting more and more hard to read/understand

will be running it through babelfish next time 😉

Posted on the wrong forum too – pretty good rant actually! 🙂

LOL – RR – So fuming I lost the ability to type 😉 😈

Gary – Its not really – its supposed to be a training/nutrion aid for cycling 😉 🙄 What a load of sh1te 😮

Colostrum, pffft. More like Weight Gainer 4000.

You really don’t want to develop a habit – 300g will last you for 5 days @ 60g/day. So to get the “benefits” that were “shown” in Dr Buckley’s study of 60g/day for 8 weeks whilst on an intensive treadmill (yawn) program it’ll cost you £280!!!

As Eric Cartman said, “Follow your dreams. You can meet your goals. I am living proof. Beefcake! BEEFCAKE!!!”

Sports Med. 2009;39(12):1033-54. doi: 10.2165/11317860-000000000-00000.
Bovine colostrum supplementation and exercise performance: potential mechanisms.

Shing CM, Hunter DC, Stevenson LM.

School of Human Life Sciences, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. Cecilia.Shing@utas.edu.au
Abstract

Bovine colostrum (BC) is rich in immune, growth and antimicrobial factors, which promote tissue growth and the development of the digestive tract and immune function in neonatal calves. Although the value of BC to human adults is not well understood, supplementation with BC is becoming increasingly popular in trained athletes to promote exercise performance. The combined presence of insulin-like growth factors (IGF), transforming growth factors, immunoglobulins, cytokines, lactoferrin and lysozyme, in addition to hormones such as growth hormone, gonadotrophin-releasing hormone, luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone and glucocorticoids, would suggest that BC might improve immune function, gastrointestinal integrity and the neuroendocrine system, parameters that may be compromised as a result of intensive training. A review of studies investigating the influence of BC supplementation on exercise performance suggests that BC supplementation is most effective during periods of high-intensity training and recovery from high-intensity training, possibly as a result of increased plasma IGF-1, improved intramuscular buffering capacity, increases in lean body mass and increases in salivary IgA. However, there are contradicting data for most parameters that have been considered to date, suggesting that small improvements across a range of parameters might contribute to improved performance and recovery, although this cannot be concluded with certainty because the various doses and length of supplementation with BC in different studies prevent direct comparison of results. Future research on the influence of BC on sports performance will only be of value if the dose and length of supplementation of a well-defined BC product is standardized across studies, and the bioavailability of the active constituents in BC is determined.

For some reason when I saw it in the fresh goods post I thought colostomy. The bag is almost the right shape and it sounds like the contents are as much use as my dyslexic first read.

LOL pd – prob what its best for 😉

Snake oil.

You’re so 2008, it was used, tried by BC and the AIS and then was banned.

Now they are obviously pushing it on us mear mortals now then 😉

Foxyrider, that journal abstract you posted is fairly positive about the benefits of taking colostrum.

so basically your saying it has a load of growth homones
which are of questionable morality and legality in a lot of sports

and then this is may favourite bit

IGF, TGF and cytokines all 3 of which are brilliant drivers of cancer; we use them regularly to stimulate immortalised cancer cell lines

where do i sign up!

[video]http://www.southparkstudios.co.uk/clips/sp_vid_149639[/video]

Finbar:
“However, there are contradicting data for most parameters that have been considered to date, suggesting that small improvements across a range of parameters might contribute to improved performance and recovery, although this cannot be concluded with certainty because the various doses and length of supplementation with BC in different studies prevent direct comparison of results. Future research on the influence of BC on sports performance will only be of value if the dose and length of supplementation of a well-defined BC product is standardized across studies, and the bioavailability of the active constituents in BC is determined.”
Which basically means its all rubbish as (apart from anything else) you can’t standardise the colostrum. Also when the manuscript says small increases, read that as not statistically significant i.e. non-existent and all part of the natural variation of the measured parameter. Always be cautious of scientists using the word ‘might’ as it generally means there is no basis for what they are about to say!

yup utter unproven tosh 🙂

Oho. I always forget that most medical research has an agenda to push (or something to sell), and it’s more important to look for weasel words.

LOL – finbar – yes it in the fine print 😉 “However,”

Kind of saddens me really. The media tends to pick up on this sh1te (see Bike radar today for a really poor piece of ‘scientific proof article’ on how being bad might be good for your cycling).
Most of the articles I read (espcially on ‘functional foods’) are along the lines of investigated effect of x on y. No significant effects but small increases in parameters 1/2/3 (out of 10-15 measured) therefore more research required as there might be a positive response.
Thus a self-perpetuating cycle – as more research is done more inconclusive data is produced which requires more research to resolve.

Amazing that you guys have such certainty in your opinions in the complete absence of knowledge.

You might like to hear from those who know rather more, some world class athletes, champions and record breakers. There are also respected coaches and sports science and medical researchers. http://www.youtube.com/user/frogleapvideo

You might then understand why champion triathlete Chrissie Wellington uses Muscle Milk brand colostrum, why British Cycling used SIS brand colostrum for the Olympics, why Welsh Rugby Union uses Maximuscle Provite colostrum for their squad, and why Pro Athlete Supplements, MyProtein, Zipvit, Reflex Nutrition and others offer colostrum products as well as the Neovite mentioned here. Neovite brand has been used by the England rugby team for five years. Colostrum is used by our top rugby clubs, Premiership soccer contenders and national cycling and triathlon champions.

Seems like you aren’t in the class of athlete that gets advice from coaches and nutritionists like Joe Beer, Matt Lovell, Mark Kleanthous, Dr Graeme Close, Nigel Mitchell or Dr Justin Roberts, otherwise you would have known more about the benefits. Just look at young Germain Burton’s result at the Bec Hillclimb for an example.

If you want the science on gut repair and growth factors check Prof Ray Playfords review published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/72/1/5?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESUL

or immune health studies which explain why users suffer fewer respiratory infections

Aberystwyth University study of immune response markers after a two hour time trial at 64% VO2 max.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20030905

or Massey University’s study into salivary antibody support in marathon runners over a six week intense training block
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16676703

If you follow the news you will see that Yakult and Actimel have also had to withdraw their health claims under the same EU regulations that prevent the description of health benefits for foodstuffs on packaging, in advertising and on websites. It appears the EU would rather you used drugs for health.

WADA have not banned the use of colostrum and leave the choice up to the national governing bodies. No rider, runner, triathlete, soccer or rugby player has ever failed a UCI or WADA test as a result of using colostrum in the ten years that it been used by Western elite athletes. Neovite colostrum is certified safe by HFL the leading UK testing labs.

Colostrum is used as a traditional food by the successful East African endurance runners who are all from pastoral cultures. In English literature it is first mentioned in the Anglo Saxon Chronicles of the 9th century.

Its cost for athletes in UK averages about a pound a day. You might believe you get better value results from pasta and sugar drinks, I suppose. If you want to see the effect that foods have on performance, I suggest you drink soy milk and eat soybean foods for a couple of months and see how much slower you’ll get.

In the hope that not all of you are content to dwell in ignorance.

You’re the UK distributor aren’t you, Milkman.

yey for obscure suppliments! The thing is, most of these things have “theoretical benefits” but how do you measure or test the benefits? Studies into supplements are notoriously hard to prove, as the required result is usually improved performance, but define performance? If I run on a treadmill for an hour and record a time, then take this supplement every day and run on a treadmill every day for an hour my distance covered will no doubt improve… mostly due to running for an hour every day!

Everybody is lacking in some nutrient or vitamin, mostly because as part of western society we mostly eat processed crap. If you have the facility to monitor the contents of your blood/ muscle tissue and find that you are lacking the specific nutrients offered by this supplement then go ahead and take it, you might feel better, if you don’t have this facility its an expensive gamble.

Not to completely rubbish supplements, I take protein and vitamins, on the grounds that I am a vegetarian who doesn’t get enough protein, and vitamins can’t hurt!

If I run on a treadmill for an hour and record a time, then take this supplement every day and run on a treadmill every day for an hour my distance covered will no doubt improve… mostly due to running for an hour every day!

yeh, but if you’re a top athlete who already runs every day, and several of yer mates are also in the blinded study but taking monkey-jizz placebo, we might get somewhere near the truth

milkman, are there any controlled, blinded studies ?

There’s placebo controlled performance trial published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine:

“Low dose bovine colostrum supplementation elicited improvements in 40km time trial performance during a high intensity training period and maintained ventilatory threshold following five consecutive days of high intensity training. by C M Shing, School of Human Movement Studies, The University of Queensland, Australia,” on this link

http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/40/9/797.abstract

What do you make of the video evidence? http://www.youtube.com/user/frogleapvideo

Phil Greening extended his professional rugby career by two seasons; veteran runner Cecilia Morrisson set two world records at 1500 and 5000m and took two European gold medals this year; 15 year old Germain Burton won the national U16 road title, won the Bec Hillclimb against adults and took fourth overall in the 180km Dragon Ride Sportif.

Over the last five years Julia Shaw has won most of the CTTC national women’s time trial championships and set records at 25 and 50 miles, all in her forties.Phil Jarvis and Joe Beer are setting PB’s also in their 40’s. Scott Neyedli won the Scottish Triathlon title and Chrissie Wellington’s tri results are legend.

More UK sports science studies are underway at Aberystwyth, Liverpool and Hatfield Universities and Queen Mary’s and St George’s medical schools in London.

Let me know if you’re still not convinced.

– oh I give up 🙂 I was going to put more scientific literature up but I can’t be arsed – I still think its all marketing hype for us mere mortals 🙂 Maybe if you are training hard it maybe of benefit but I shan’t be buying any 🙂

Hi foxyrider.

You are right, you don’t need to buy any. Colostrum is for people who train hard. That’s why it’s chosen by professional athletes and those at the top of their game.

Milkman, this is from the article you posted:

“[in high intensity training colostrum] elicited a 1.9±2.2% improvement from baseline in TT40 performance and a 2.3±6.0% increase in time trial intensity (% VO2max)”

Nice use of error bounds.

Anecdotal evidence isn’t worth jack. All the examples you quoted prove is that some good athletes have taken your product. There’s no evidence colostrum is responsible for their performance.

The Aberystwyth study of athletes showed “supplementation either speeded the recovery (neutrophil function) or prevented the decrease (salivary lysozyme) in these measures of innate immunity” by significant amounts and in the Massey study the salivary antibody levels showed a difference of 79% after 12 weeks, well beyond error margins.

If you expect improved respiratory health and better maintenance of the barrier function of the gut to influence athletic performance why would 2% be disappointing even allowing for the possible errors in a small sample size. It’s consistent with the reports of users. In any case it would be unreasonable to expect any greater performance improvement in trained athletes under the trial conditions compared to a placebo group using whey proteins. Such health improvements provide an immune system platform for more consistent training with less down time due to illness and this is the reason results are improved.

Soooooo, your first appearance on the forum and you’re a shill?

“improved respiratory health” what does this mean in physiological terms?

“better maintenance of the barrier function of the gut” what does this actually mean in medical terms?

Lets see what the Australian Institute of Sport have to say;

• To date, a small number of studies have been conducted and published in peer-reviewed literature. Although these studies are well-controlled and have involved long-term supplementation with several commercially available colostrum supplements, they have been unable to show consistent or universal improvement of athletic performance. However, one study has shown that a short-lived benefit may occur immediately after periods of intensified training due to a reduction in residual fatigue (Shing et al. 2006).
• There is little evidence of an enhanced outcome of training on changes in body mass or body composition.
• The possibility of a reduced risk of illness with colostrum supplementation still requires careful long-term research.
• A mechanism by which colostrum supplementation may benefit athletes remains speculative. While a few studies indicate that colostrum supplementation increases concentrations of serum IGF-1 and salivary immunoglobulins, other studies have failed to demonstrate these findings (Mero et al. 2002).
• In summary, further research is required to demonstrate that colostrum supplementation benefits performance and to identify the athlete group most likely to benefit from supplementation.

Good for baby cows….

Oakley sunnies are worn by lots of top athletes too; it’s a marketing thing doncha know..

Cheer up folks, it’s not as if milkman started all this

trouble is these studies would need to be bloody big, given that interindividual performance must vary even day to day by several percent. To weed that out and show a modest effect (same size as the natural variability) would take much larger sample sizes. Oh, and see Beryl Burton for unbelievable longevity well before this stuff was available

must admit to being unimpressed with surrogates like salivary enzymes, but you can’t just dismiss this shizzle without being as unscientific as you suggest the “other side” are.

If it does prevent performance loss to minor infections, rather than actually boosting it, then my money’s on alberto getting the clenbuterol straight from the udder, not the bag 😆

For clarity “improved respiratory health” means fewer colds, coughs and sore throats. Just as reported in the videos. “maintaining gut barrier function” means no execise induced diarhoea and vomiting, no Paula Radcliffe moments on hot days, no runners’ trots, no bib-straps down syndrome. Hope that explains.

If you follow the news you will see that Yakult and Actimel have also had to withdraw their health claims under the same EU regulations that prevent the description of health benefits for foodstuffs on packaging, in advertising and on websites. It appears the EU would rather you used drugs for health.

Bollox

Teh eu reg is to prevent false advertising. You can claim health benefits but they have to stand up to independent scrutiny. If they don’t you can’t claim them

The legislation on nutrition and health claims protects consumers by prohibiting any information which:

* is false, difficult to understand or misleading (e.g. which attributes medicinal properties to food wrongly or without scientific evidence);
……………..

This Regulation supplements Directive 2000/13/EC relating to food labelling and Directive 2006/114/EC on misleading and comparative advertising which could mislead the consumer.

General conditions of use

Nutritional and health claims must meet the following conditions:

* the presence, absence or reduced content of a nutrient or other substance in respect of which the claim is made must have a beneficial nutritional or physiological effect, and be scientifically proven;
………………….

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/consumers/product_labelling_and_packaging/l21306_en.htm

In other words if this snake oil had verifiable benefits you could claim them.

Hi foxyrider.

You are right, you don’t need to buy any. Colostrum is for people who train hard. That’s why it’s chosen by professional athletes and those at the top of their game.

Was this intended to be a rude as it sounds? Are we perhaps not worthy of your wonder-product as we’re not superstars?

Not only must your health claims be true but before they can be stated they have to be approved by EFSA (European Food Standards Agency) who demand large scale clinical trials on already healthy individuals. That’s why the Yakult and Actimel claims failed, their science being mainly on people with pre-existing digestive disorders, showing their improvements and thes studies were excluded by EFSA. The cost of trials and EFSA approval will run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, an effective barrier to small businesses.

Athletes who train hard will stress their immune systems and will show iproved recovery when using colostrum. That’s supported by the science and the videos. If foxyrider doesn’t train hard then he/she may not find any advantage in using colostrum, that’s all.

If you want the opiniomn of the England RFU’s nutritionist Matt Lovell try this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7YXSpA4ol4

Milkman. Thats right – the claims you make must be true. They must be supported by rigorous and valid trials. If they are not you cannot claim health benefits.

This is to protect the consumer from snake oil salesmen.

Athletes who train hard will stress their immune systems and will show iproved recovery when using colostrum. That’s supported by the science and the videos.

No it is not the videos show no evidence and the science does not support this – read crikeys post above

Crikey’s quote: the Australian Institute of Sport makes no reference to the Aberystwyth or Massey University studies on the immune response of athletes

Milkman. I have just had a glance ant the various studies you suggest.

On the gut action they are not looking at atheletes but people with gut illness. No correlation with atheltes

On respiritory the conclusion is:

While this result is statistically significant, its physiological interpretation must be viewed with caution due to the small numbers in this study and the large variability in s-IgA levels.

And the other one the reults are withing the range of error.

No quality evidence there then

Lots of athletes seem to believe in the power of holograms as well, doesn’t mean I will do the same. Lets face it in general sportsmen and women are far from being the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Oh crikey – can of worms 😯 I am glad people are doing the work I couldn’t be arsed to do – cheers guys 😉 Oh perhaps I should have titled my OP as bovine colostrum not Neovite colostrum as I was not targeting Neovite but colostrum generally following the fresh goods link > 🙂