Effects of bovine colostrum supplementation on upper respiratory illness in active males

Arwel W. Jones, Simon J. S. Cameron, Rhys Thatcher, Marikka Shannon Beecroft, Luis A. J. Mur, Glen Davison

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Bovine colostrum (COL) has been advocated as a nutritional countermeasure to exercise-induced immune dysfunction and increased risk of upper respiratory illness (URI) in athletic populations, however, the mechanisms remain unclear. During winter months, under double-blind procedures, 53 males (mean training load±SD, 50.5±28.9 MET-hweek(-1)) were randomized to daily supplementation of 20g of COL (N=25) or an isoenergetic/isomacronutrient placebo (PLA) (N=28) for 12weeks. Venous blood was collected at baseline and at 12weeks and unstimulated saliva samples at 4 weeks intervals. There was a significantly lower proportion of URI days and number of URI episodes with COL compared to PLA over the 12weeks (p0.05), which does not support previously suggested mechanisms. In a subset of participants (COL=14, PLA=17), real-time quantitative PCR, targeting the 16S rRNA gene showed there was an increase in salivary bacterial load over the 12 weeks period with PLA (p
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)194-203
JournalBrain, Behavior, and Immunity
Volume39
Early online date04 Nov 2013
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2014

Keywords

  • URTI
  • innate immunity
  • mucosal immunity
  • microbiome
  • 16S rRNA
  • metabolomics

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