Scroll through social media, and it won’t be long before you stumble on colostrum supplements—a buzzy nutrition trend that makes big claims and leaves us with even bigger questions. Kourtney Kardashian Barker is the latest celeb to capitalize on the craze: Her wellness brand, Lemme, has introduced a new line of colostrum gummies purported to support gut health, promote healthy digestion, manage bloating, and enhance “full-body wellness.”
Made from the milk-like substance secreted in late pregnancy and the first few days of breastfeeding, colostrum—normally only consumed by infants and other baby mammals, like calves—is being touted as a magic bullet for adults. Companies claim a wide range of health benefits, from improving your skin to regulating digestion (looking at you, Kourtney), and some even say it boosts your immunity and speeds up post-workout recovery. Sounds great, sure, but does the research follow in line? We asked nutrition, lactation, and GI experts to break it down.
If you’re stuck on the fact that colostrum is a precursor to breast milk, let’s clear something up (and hopefully put your mind at ease in the process): You’re not ingesting a human bodily fluid when you take a colostrum supplement. While mammals of all kinds (humans included) produce colostrum to meet the nutritional and developmental demands of their offspring, the stuff you see in commercial products is bovine colostrum—colostrum that comes from cows. (For clarity, however, we’ll just refer to it as “colostrum” here.) In most cases, the supplement form is sold dried or in capsules rather than as a liquid.
Compared to the milk that comes later, colostrum is thicker and more concentrated. It’s especially rich in nutrients that reduce infection risk and gut inflammation in newborns, like prebiotics, as well as enzymes and proteins with antibacterial and antiviral properties, like lysozyme and lactoferrin, Jennifer T. Smilowitz, PhD, lactation education counselor and assistant professor in the department of nutrition at the University of California, Davis, tells SELF. This isn’t an accident: At birth for both humans and cows, the gut is slightly permeable, which can increase the potential for infection and inflammation—“so colostrum fed in the first few days of life helps fortify” it, Dr. Smilowitz says.
Bovine colostrum also contains the same helpful nutrients as cow’s milk—and more, Cara Harbstreet, MS, RD, of Street Smart Nutrition, tells SELF. That includes fat-soluble vitamins A, D, and E, plus important minerals like calcium, iron, zinc, and magnesium. Some, like IGF-1, which helps bones and tissue develop normally, actually exist in higher concentrations in the colostrum.
The fact that colostrum is great for gut health (albeit in infants) is a large part of the reason why it’s become such a wellness darling, Harbstreet says. Right now, the cultural spotlight on better digestion and regularity has never been stronger. Couple that with other supposed benefits like elevated workouts and heightened immune strength—two other big-ticket topics on folks’ minds right now—and it’s not hard to see why interest in the supplement is spiking.
Colostrum’s benefits for adult humans are…questionable
Forget the slogans, taglines, and celeb endorsements: What does the science say about colostrum?
First, there’s no understating the value of human colostrum to newborns, Dr. Smilowitz says, since it delivers both vital nutrients and protective molecules that “support development during a very vulnerable period.” As for the bovine stuff? While there’s not a ton of research out there, what little there is seems to show that bovine colostrum can provide similar benefits, which can be a boon to those seeking alternatives to or supplements for breast milk out of preference or necessity.
But adults aren’t just big babies, so it’s not clear whether bovine colostrum affects us in the same way. To throw an additional wrench into the works, adults are turning to it for a whole bunch of other reasons other than its biological purpose, including clearing up their skin, easing their digestion, and taking their workouts to the next level.
And according to Dr. Smilowitz, the data for these claims is mixed at best.
Take workouts. When exercisers took bovine colostrum supplements, they experienced only a slight (and, as the researchers noted, nonsignificant) increase in insulin-like growth factor hormones—which help with post-workout muscle repair and recovery—after one day, according to a 2019 study in the European Journal of Nutrition. Even more damningly, there was no change in levels after four and 12 weeks among the exercisers. And while a small 2023 study in Nutrients found that soccer players taking bovine colostrum supplements exhibited a decrease in inflammatory markers after exercise, it didn’t uncover an increase of any kind in athletic performance. Overall, “the evidence base…remains minimal at present,” as a comprehensive review looking at colostrum’s effects on exercise and sport concluded.
The benefits of colostrum for skin health are even less supported. One of the few studies on this topic thus far—which found that colostrum may have promising protective qualities—was performed on isolated human skin cells rather than actual people, a major caveat—so until more robust research (like testing on human beings) is available, there’s no hard proof that taking colostrum supplements will do anything for your skin.
As for gut health, colostrum has been most studied for preventing diarrhea, especially in travelers, Daniel Freedberg, MD, MS, a gastroenterologist at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and an expert with the American Gastroenterological Association, tells SELF. But even those findings are inconclusive, according to Dr. Smilowitz. Take a 2024 review in Systematic Reviews, which looked at the effect of supplementation on GI issues. Of 20 studies, 15 found bovine colostrum decreased the frequency of diarrhea, though most saw no change in how long it lasted when it did hit—and of the 22 total studies, none showed a benefit for other issues like constipation.
The same mixed bag exists for immune health. While a review of 28 clinical studies concluded that supplementation seemed to promote immune system response, the authors also flagged that because of all the differences in their methodologies and sample sizes, making a concrete determination wasn’t possible. “Further well-designed studies are needed” to support its use, they concluded.
That common theme is one of the biggest problems with bovine colostrum research: Overall, the studies tend to be lacking. “Most studies at this point are very small, usually less than 100 people,” Harbstreet says. And some, like this review on bovine colostrum and exercise, flat-out state that they didn’t do a great job teasing out possible confounding factors that could mess with results. Ultimately, “it’s too soon to make sweeping claims about the supposed benefits of colostrum at this point,” Harbstreet says.
To underscore all this uncertainty, it’s tricky to say for sure whether all of the nutrients in actual bovine colostrum show up in the same way in bovine colostrum supplements, Dr. Smilowitz says. More specifically, it all depends on how it’s processed. Processing methods that involve heat (like pasteurization or spray drying) can fundamentally change the proteins within and hurt their potential immune-boosting, gut-healing, and muscle-repairing properties, she explains. This makes sense: Colostrum was designed to be ingested straight from the breast of the lactating mammal. Freeze-drying better preserves the beneficial nutrients, but most supplements rely on one of the two heat-based options because they’re faster and less expensive—which means that there’s a good chance the colostrum products you encounter won’t have the same makeup as the actual stuff.
And because supplements in general are not regulated in the same way as food and medications since they fall outside the purview of the FDA, there’s no way to know for sure what you’re getting in each capsule or container, Harbstreet says—or that what you are getting does what it claims to do. Supplement manufacturers “don't have any burden of substantiating any benefit. They can say whatever they want,” Dr. Freedberg says. “In fact, the more vague their claim is, in some sense, the easier it is for them to sell their product”—whereas prescription drug manufacturers “have to really prove that their drug does what they say it does” through expensive clinical trials that cost millions of dollars.”
So the digestive health improvements touted by those gummies your Instagram feed is pushing? A little dubious. Dr. Freedberg says colostrum gummies are “unlikely to affect ‘full-body wellness,’ whatever that means.” Even if colostrum does turn out to be capable of enhancing your gut health overall (which, as we’ve established, is iffy at this point), he has concerns about whether the amount of colostrum in the gummies is sufficient to have that effect.
Take the Lemme gummies, for example: Compared to many other colostrum supplements, which average around one gram (or 1000 milligrams) of colostrum per serving, a two-gummy serving contains 215 milligrams of a “gut health complex” that includes both colostrum and prebiotics. It’s not clear how many of those 215 milligrams are accounted for by the colostrum alone, and even so, 215 milligrams of colostrum is only a fraction of the amount a newborn would conceivably consume per day. “What are you actually getting if you're just getting a fancy pill bottle and a tiny amount of colostrum? That doesn't sound like a great value proposition to me,” Dr. Freedberg says.
On the other hand, these gummies probably don’t pose any health risks, according to Dr. Freedberg, so if you’re curious and want to try them, it shouldn’t hurt. “I don't see any realistic safety concerns,” he says. So “I don’t think it'll harm people, but whether it'll help them or not is another question.”
The short answer is no, say both Dr. Smilowitz and Harbstreet—at least not until we have better, more conclusive research.
The best thing to do? Ask yourself why you’re interested in taking a colostrum supplement in the first place. Say you want to recover better after exercise or soothe your GI system. If that’s the case, see if there’s another (proven) way to address the issue. (Spoiler: There are tons of options that are more evidence-backed than colostrum.) Maybe you need to eat more protein and take an extra rest day, or increase your fiber intake to help you poop more easily. “As much as you might crave a quick fix, you could be better off investing in other aspects of your routine to reap bigger rewards for your short- and long-term health,” Harbstreet says.
And as always, if you have a question or concern about your body, looping in a pro is never a bad idea and will always offer an individualized approach that a random powder, pill, or gummy can’t. Your primary care physician can be an excellent resource: “We'll try to provide the best advice we can,” Dr. Freedberg says. And hopefully it goes without saying, but, he emphasizes, absolutely do not feed your baby colostrum gummies in lieu of actual formula or breast milk.
