Bra-ce yourself for this - breast milk could be the wonder drug to combat the obesity plague and, unlike other dieting snake oils, scientific data seems to suggest that this is no booby trap, claims Asahi Geino (4/19).
Key to the assertion is a substance called lactoferrin, a protein found in copious amounts in breast milk and a substance believed to cut visceral fat levels by as much as 40 percent.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare estimates one in every two middle-aged Japanese men, that is around 20 million guys, either have, or are on the verge of being afflicted by, metabolic syndrome - a combination of disorders that makes people more susceptible to heart disease and diabetes.
But last month, scientists at Lion Corp. found lactoferrin can drastically cut the visceral fats that are the major cause of metabolic syndrome and what make obesity such a killer.
“We conducted tests on 12 men from 35 to 60, giving them a 300 milligram lactoferrin tablet daily for two months. We discovered during a CT scan that they had an average loss of 22 percent of visceral fat and their waistlines shrank an average of 4 percent. In one case, one of the subjects showed a loss of 40 percent of visceral fat,” a spokesman for Lion Corp. tells Asahi Geino.
Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine Prof. Hoyoku Nishino, who served as an adviser to the team doing the research, said the findings were unexpected.
“(Lactoferrin) is a protein found in bodily fluids. It’s in tears, uterine discharges and even mucus, but the largest amounts are found in breast milk, especially new breast milk (produced one to three days from childbirth). It’s been known across the world for a long time that lactoferrin has anti-bacteria effects that protect bacteria free newborns and also provide immunity. Our study was looking into whether the immunity breast milk provided could be used to prevent the outbreak of cancer. We were studying the matter for 13 years,” the doctor tells Asahi Geino before going on to explain how the team found out lactoferrin helps fatties as much as babies. “We had absolutely no idea we were going to discover that lactoferrin has such an effect in reducing visceral fat. We started looking into whether lactoferrin could be used to fight gum disease. Tests began on company employees and we noticed one of the fatter ones started losing weight. The research team thought there may have been something else in the lactoferrin and began studying it further, taking about three years of research to collate data. The result was that we kept getting more and more data showing lactoferrin drastically reduced visceral fats.”
Lion plans to commercialize its discovery, hoping that using the breast milk substance to prevent people from getting fat will fatten its bank accounts. Economist Takuro Morinaga predicts lactoferrin could produce a boom from the bust.
“The U.S. diet market is said to be worth around 4.8 trillion yen, but Japan is only about one-third of that at around 1.6 trillion yen. But if lactoferrin is as good as it seems, Japan’s share of the U.S. market will grow to about half. In the world of economics, there is an old saying that the easy way to riches is to develop a medicine to end baldness or one to eliminate fat,” Morinaga tells Asahi Geino. “Up until now there have only been minor successes in both fields and no really major developments. There is a market in developed countries throughout the world. This could be huge!” (By Ryann Connell)
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