I'm looking this up on EBSCOhost right now, and I'm surprised to find that I'm coming up with a lot of stuff in peer-reviewed journals. Kind of cool.
One abstract I've been able to dig up so far, from the European Journal of Nutrition:
Quote:
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Background Anecdotal reports suggest that bovine colostrum may prevent upper respiratory tract infection (URTI). There is scant evidence to support such claims, although salivary IgA protects against URTI, and it was recently shown that bovine colostrum increases salivary IgA. Aim of the study The present investigation examined whether concentrated bovine colostrum protein (CBC) affected the incidence or duration of self-reported symptoms of URTI in adult males. Methods We examined logbooks containing self-reported symptoms of illness from previous studies which examined physiological effects of CBC. In these double-blind, placebo controlled studies, subjects had been randomly allocated to consume 60 g. day 1 of CBC (n = 93) or whey protein (WP) (n = 81) for eight weeks. Symptoms were coded using established criteria to identify those related to URTI. Since the incubation period for an URTI is up to five days, symptoms reported during the first week of supplementation (PRE-EXP) were analysed separately to preclude those arising from infection prior to study commencement. Results During PRE-EXP, there was no dif ference in the proportion of subjects taking the different supplements who reported symptoms of URTI (CBC, 11%,WP, 5%; 95% Confidence Interval (95 % CI) -14% to 2%; P = 0.16). During the subsequent seven weeks (i. e. the experimental period), a significantly lesser proportion of subjects taking CBC reported symptoms of URTI compared with those taking WP (CBC, 32 %, WP, 48 %, P = 0.03; 95 % CI -30 % to -2 %), but symptom duration did not differ (CBC, 6.8 &plusmin; 4.2 days, WP, 6.0 &plusmin; 4.4 days; P = 0.27). Conclusion This study provides preliminary evidence that CBC may enhance resistance to the development of symptoms of URTI.
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To summarize, the study found that the group taking concentrated bovine colostrum suffered from fewer symptoms of upper respiratory tract infections compared to the placebo group, which took whey protein, over the course of the study. There is one problem I have with this study--the self-reporting. That means there is a definite human error factor here, but the authors of the study did do a good job of counteracting for that by making it a placebo-controlled, double-blind study.
Another study I found suggested that bovine colustrum may be helpful in relieving AIDS-related diarrhea.
I find this interesting, as human colostrum is pretty vital to establishing a newborn's immune system, and getting their digestive system rolling. Given that similar compounds exist in bovine colostrum, I am interested to see how this benefits human adults (versus babies or calves).