True Milk of Human Kindness

Jeremiah 32:22
“And hast given them this land, which thou didst swear to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey….”

While many people recognize the virtues of feeding their infants human breast milk, science is still learning its amazing secrets. Although cow’s milk contains many substances found in human milk, it does not contain certain very specific substances necessary to protect the infant.

Human milk not only helps protect the infant’s digestive system by discouraging bad bacteria, it also introduces and encourages good bacteria. In fact, some of the good bacteria that protect the infant are found in no other place on Earth. Oligosaccharides in milk kill bad bacteria in a way in which the bad bacteria can never develop immunity. Lactoferrin in human milk can suppress inflammation. It also boosts the immune system and kills viruses, bad bacteria and fungi. Not only does the mother’s milk pass mom’s immunities on to the infant, the milk’s oligosaccharides give infants immunity to germs the mother has never even encountered. The protein alphalactalbumin in an acid environment such as the digestive tract can even reduce warts and kill cancer cells. So far, alphalactalbumin has been shown to effectively kill forty different kinds of cancer cells. Use of this protein in preliminary clinical trials to treat bladder cancer has been promising.

While God has given us so many good things, we are still only discovering them. But the greatest of His gifts is salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ.

Prayer:
Dear Father, thank You for all Your good gifts, especially the forgiveness of sins, eternal life and salvation. Amen.

Notes:
Science News, 12/9/06, pp. 376-378, Julie J. Rehmeyer, “Milk Therapy.” Photo: Molecular structure of alphalactalbumin. Courtesy of Emw. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.