OME adult cancer patients are turning to breast milk to help them beat the illness, it emerged yesterday.
They believe it can boost their immune system and ease the side- effects of chemotherapy.
For four years a milk bank in San Jose, California, has been supplying donated breast milk meant for low-weight and premature babies to 28 adult patients who have a doctor’s prescription.
Howard Cohen, who has twice weekly ‘smoothies’ made from the milk, believes it has helped put his prostate cancer into remission and enabled him to avoid invasive surgery.
The Californian software consultant started taking the milk after his wife learned of Swedish research which suggested that breast milk could kill cancer cells in a test tube.
Mr Cohen said his levels of Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA), an enzyme in the blood which can be a warning sign for prostate cancer- dropped back to normal after taking the milk. His doctor has told him that as some prostate cancers grow so slowly, the breast milk may have made little difference.
However he is convinced it has, saying that when he stopped taking the milk temporarily, his PSA levels went up.
Last night UK doctors warned there was no real evidence of any benefit to cancer patients from breast milk. Dr Lesley Walker, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘I think by and large it might not do any harm, although it would be crucial to make sure it was tested for any viruses. But the chances of it having any major effect are very low.
‘The problem with anecdotal evidence is that it is simply not possible to evaluate the efficacy of something in this way.’
David Kerr, professor of clinical pharmacology and cancer therapeutics at Oxford University, said he understood why patients wanted to leave no stone unturned in their quest for a cure.
But he added: ‘This is quite bizarre, completely anecdotal and probably complete bunkum. It probably won’t do any harm but it is unlikely to do any good either.’
New mothers are strongly urged to breast feed their babies.
Research has shown breast milk boosts the immune system and babies who are breastfed have lower blood pressure and are less likely to be obese in later life. In 1995 researchers from Lund University in Sweden found that a protein in breast milk appeared to destroy cancer cells in the laboratory.
Last year another study by the same university found a different compound in breast milk appeared to destroy skin warts triggered by the human papilloma virus (HPV).
Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the authors said the discovery could have implications for preventing or treating other HPV-related cancers, such cervical cancer.
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