Breast milk and stem cells

[Guest guest]

For moms who are trying to heal their vaccine injured kids' gut- how

about breastmilk!!!

http://www.sciencealert.com.au/news/20081102-16879.html

Breast milk contains stem cells

Monday, 11 February 2008

By Madden

Mammary stem cells (red/blue) and differentiated

adult mammary cells (green) isolated from human

breast milk. The Perth scientist who made the world-first discovery

that human breast milk contains stem cells is confident that within

five years scientists will be harvesting them to research treatment

for conditions as far-reaching as spinal injuries, diabetes and

Parkinson's disease.

But what Dr Mark Cregan is excited about right now is the promise

that his discovery could be the start of many more exciting

revelations about the potency of breast milk.

He believes that it not only meets all the nutritional needs of a

growing infant but contains key markers that guide his or her

development into adulthood.

" We already know how breast milk provides for the baby's nutritional

needs, but we are only just beginning to understand that it probably

performs many other functions, " says Dr Cregan, a molecular biologist

at The University of Western Australia.

He says that, in essence, a new mother's mammary glands take over

from the placenta to provide the development guidance to ensure a

baby's genetic destiny is fulfilled.

" It is setting the baby up for the perfect development, " he says. " We

already know that babies who are breast fed have an IQ advantage and

that there's a raft of other health benefits. Researchers also

believe that the protective effects of being breast fed continue well

into adult life.

" The point is that many mothers see milks as identical – formula milk

and breast milk look the same so they must be the same. But we know

now that they are quite different and a lot of the effects of breast

milk versus formula don't become apparent for decades. Formula

companies have focussed on matching breast milk's nutritional

qualities but formula can never provide the developmental guidance. "

It was Dr Cregan's interest in infant health that led him to

investigate the complex cellular components of human milk. " I was

looking at this vast complexity of cells and I thought, `No one knows

anything about them'. "

His hunch was that if breast milk contains all these cells, surely it

has their precursors, too?

His team cultured cells from human breast milk and found a population

that tested positive for the stem cell marker, nestin. Further

analysis showed that a side population of the stem cells were of

multiple lineages with the potential to differentiate into multiple

cell types. This means the cells could potentially be " reprogrammed "

to form many types of human tissue.

He presented his research at the end of January to 200 of the world's

leading experts in the field at the International Conference of the

Society for Research on Human Milk and Lactation in Perth.

" We have shown these cells have all the physical characteristics of

stem cells. What we will do next is to see if they behave like stem

cells, " he says.

If so, they promise to provide researchers with an entirely ethical

means of harvesting stem cells for research without the debate that

has dogged the harvesting of cells from embryos.

Further research on immune cells, which have also been found in

breast milk and have already been shown to survive the baby's

digestive process, could provide a pathway to developing targets to

beat certain viruses or bacteria.