Lactoferrin from Milk

Lactoferrin is a protein found in cow milk and human milk. Colostrum, the first milk produced after a baby is born, contains high levels of lactoferrin, about seven times the amount found in milk produced later on. Lactoferrin is also found in fluids in the eye, nose, respiratory tract, intestine, and elsewhere. People use lactoferrin as medicine.

Some people worry about getting “mad cow disease” from medicinal lactoferrin taken from cows, but this risk is generally considered very small. Additionally, most medicinal human lactoferrin is taken from specially engineered rice.

Lactoferrin is used for treating stomach and intestinal ulcers, diarrhea, and hepatitis C. It is also used as an antioxidant and to protect against bacterial and viral infections. Other uses include stimulating the immune system, preventing tissue damage related to aging, promoting healthy intestinal bacteria, preventing cancer, and regulating the way the body processes iron.

Some researchers suggest lactoferrin might play a role in solving global health problems such as iron deficiency and severe diarrhea.

In industrial agriculture, lactoferrin is used to kill bacteria during meat processing.

Lactoferrin is an iron-binding protein present in large quantities in colostrum and in breast milk, in external secretions and in polymorphonuclear leukocytes. Lactoferrin’s main function is non-immune protection. Among several protective activities shown by lactoferrin, those displayed by orally administered lactoferrin are: (i) antimicrobial activity, which has been presumed due to iron deprivation, but more recently attributed also to a specific interaction with the bacterial cell wall and extended to viruses and parasites; (ii) immunomodulatory activity, with a direct effect on the development of the immune system in the newborn, together with a specific antinflammatory effects; (iii) a more recently discovered anticancer activity. It is worth noting that most of the protective activities of lactoferrin have been found, sometimes to a greater extent, also in peptides derived from limited proteolysis of lactoferrin that could be generated after lactoferrin ingestion. Lactoferrin could therefore be considered an ideal nutraceutic product because of its relatively cheap production from bovine milk and of its widely recognized tolerance after ingestion, along with its well demonstrated protective activities. 

How does it work?

Lactoferrin helps regulate the absorption of iron in the intestine and delivery of iron to the cells.

It also seems to protect against bacterial infection, possibly by preventing the growth of bacteria by depriving them of essential nutrients or by killing bacteria by destroying their cell walls. The lactoferrin contained in mother’s milk is credited with helping to protect breast-fed infants against bacterial infections.

In addition to bacterial infections, lactoferrin seems to be active against infections causes by some viruses and fungi.

Lactoferrin also seems to be involved with regulation of bone marrow function (myelopoiesis), and it seems to be able to boost the body’s defense (immune) system.

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