After her father Tim was diagnosed with colon cancer, Georgia Browne went on the Internet to research ways to help save him. That's where she got a brilliant though a bit unconventional idea to feed her dad breastmilk:
Georgia recalls. ‘I started researching on the internet immediately and found separate studies in America and Scandinavia both supporting the health benefits of breastmilk to cancer sufferers.
‘I watched the documentary and thought it was a really mad idea, if it was true,’ she says. 'I started looking on the net and found research suggesting breastmilk helps kill cancer cells.
‘Finding out I could help was amazing. I could play my small part in helping my dad do something positive for his illness. 'When I talked to him about it, he thought it was a great idea. He thought: “Why not?”’ [...]
With the family’s blessing, Georgia started expressing her milk for Tim straight away. She dropped the first batch round to her parents’ home in a freezer bag, which her mum popped in the freezer.
‘I thought he’d mix it into a milkshake like the man in the documentary, but when Mum defrosted it the next day, he simply poured it on his cornflakes with a splash of normal cow’s milk. He said it didn’t taste that different to cow’s milk, maybe just a bit sweeter if he didn’t get the mix right,’ Georgia says.
New Idea magazine has more: Link
I'm fighting my initial response which is to be super grossed out. I shouldn't be, we drink cow breast milk after all. It's not that it's breast milk that freaks me out, it's that it's a daughter sharing it with her father and the image that it puts in your head. I think I'd be more comfortable with this if it was anonymous breast milk from a milk bank (which already exist for moms who never develop breast milk while pregnant). Either way, I think it's amazing if it actually work (both I and my mother have cancer) and I hope that the medical community is working hard to figure out WHAT in the breast milk is the key and how to replicate it.
Cause ya know any medical research found on the web (especially from Scandinavia) must be true.
Why JAMA never seems to get around to publishing stuff that anyone can find on the web is just plain elitism.
Plus think of all the empirical evidence - how many baby's do you know of that die of cancer?
Just.. I dunno... bleh.
Baby drinking breastmilk= ok.... Father drinking his daughter's breastmilk= creepy as hell.
"Daughter Helps Dad Fight Cancer … By Breastfeeding Him!" FAIL
"Daughter helps dad fight cancer by donating breast milk" WIN
Although I guess no matter how much I pour my heart out here, Alex doesn't give a shit.
However, good luck to them! If he's not consuming it directly from the source then it's not too different from cow's milk is it?
--TwoDragons
@jermH: freezing is ok and it's validated by hospitals (in Mount Auburn hospital, Cambridge, MA at least).
@eni: you speak the truth.
Also, see your post.
The benefits of breast milk are obvious. That it can CURE cancer, I doubt. But I am very sure that it can help the intestine regain a certain stage of health. Good that it helped someone.
You guys are weird.
"High consumption of dairy products was
associated with a 50 percent increased
risk of prostate cancer. "
Chan JM, Cancer Causes Control
1998 Dec;9(6):559-66
more:
http://notmilk.com/bgraham.html
I sense another lucrative economic niche for women in the 3rd world.
As a mother of a baby that has cancer. Infant leukemia to be exact... look it up on the internet. Babies do die from cancer sadly. Our little girl has been breastfed from day one.. and at 20 months is still breastfed.. she has done amazingly well and our oncologists puts a great deal of her wellbeing down to her being nursed. In 14 months of aggressive chemotherapy treatment she's had 7 bad days... thats better than average..
Perhaps you should think a bit before you make comments like the ine you did...