A new controversial trend is shaking up the world of bodybuilding. Instead of taking steroids, men are drinking breast milk
People want to be healthy, fit and sexy. It is therefore not surprising that from time to time controversial tips on how to achieve these goals "easily and quickly" appear in the media. Although many know that "easy and fast" is usually not possible for anything with a lasting effect (and also a course that the body literally does not "hunt"), yet countless people have fallen for the consumption of so-called "There are also those who drink "chlorine water" (supposedly to cleanse the body)... and now there are men who deliberately drink breast milk. This not only supposedly cracks down on cancer, but is also supposedly a great muscle-building aid...
Within the fitness segment, many bodybuilders (and not just the professional ones, but the amateur ones as well) practice things that those whose body full of muscles leaves them relatively cold just shake their heads at. But let's leave aside the much talked about topic of steroids and other stimulants - men have found a new way to encourage the body to become perfectly "muscular". Consuming breast milk. And thanks to the Netflix documentary series (Un)Well, which devoted an entire episode to this practice, men all over the world already know what they should definitely (not) try.
"If I want to grow and do my best for myself, I'm simply going to eat like a baby," says straight-up amateur bodybuilder JJ Ritenour. He started drinking breast milk after his partner gave birth to their first child - that's when he started adding any breast milk his offspring didn't consume to his protein shakes. "I figured it was a little extra that definitely couldn't hurt me," Ritenour said in an earlier interview. In his opinion, this rather unconventional "dietary supplement" helped him get rid of body fat without losing muscle mass.
"I would say that the vitamins from breast milk really helped him," Ritenour's trainer says in the Netflix documentary, referring to the measurable progress he made after consuming breast milk.
And breast milk became a business...
You may have wondered, while reading the previous lines, where the men in question get their breast milk in the first place... Well, the classic rules of the market apply here too - where there is supply, there is supply. And so getting breast milk is really the least of the problems, as many breastfeeding women have made a fairly solid business out of selling their own milk (and earning tens of thousands of crowns) and selling it through online advertising, including on Facebook. It should also be added that breast milk is also commonly sold on the black market - for example, in the USA there is a shortage of breast milk for children in institutional care. And according to experts, the illegally traded milk is often as full of bacteria as sewage water...
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Is breast milk a (bodybuilding) panacea?
Of course, doctors, nutritionists and dieticians have already started to take notice of the new trend. According to one of them, Brian St. Pierre, the idea of consuming breast milk for the sake of muscle growth simply came from the assumption that breast milk is highly caloric, nutritious and contains many health benefits. "Breast milk is associated with rapid growth in children, so people may have concluded that it would have a similar effect on adults," he explains directly.
Thus, some consider breast milk to be essentially liquid gold. They see so-called colostrum, the milk produced by mammals immediately after the birth of their offspring, as the best anabolic in the world. It is the achievement of the so-called anabolic state, when muscles are actively repaired and built, that is the holy grail of bodybuilding. Human colostrum then contains growth hormone, which is believed to aid muscle regeneration, but also human milk oligosaccharides, which are commonly sold in the bodybuilding world in tablet form...
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Facts vs. myths
The truth is, however, that to date there is not a single piece of evidence that breast milk has any positive benefits when applied to bodybuilding. According to Bruce German, who is a professor in food chemistry, although breast milk is essential for child development, it is not particularly beneficial for adult athletes. "The nutritional composition of breast milk is also not ideal due to its low protein content and, on the contrary, high levels of saturated fat and amounts of indigestible lactose," he adds. Not to mention that the specific composition of breast milk changes virtually every day - and perhaps even hour - in accordance with how the baby grows. In other words - the milk produced by a mother's body for a newborn is diametrically opposed in composition to the milk for a six-month-old baby. With this in mind, it is clear that there is essentially no "universal mother's milk" that will ensure miraculous muscle growth.
Still, many men are convinced that some of the unverified information - i.e., that breast milk benefits athletes, and may even help treat cancer (as evidenced by research, though only conducted under laboratory conditions) - is true. And so not only bodybuilders but also cancer patients drink it.
Breast milk as a dietary supplement?
With the growing demand for breast milk, the idea is that, in order to meet the needs of the market, it could eventually be distributed, for example, in the form of pills, which we now swallow to supplement vitamins or calcium. Business is business, regardless of any objective expert opinion. They claim, moreover, that breast milk is actually not particularly suitable for adults and that it does not make much sense from a nutritional point of view. Moreover, due to its high lactose content, it can cause digestive problems - but none of this will stop those who crave muscles like a rock...
