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"Lyme Disease and Colostrum"
Dear Dr. Lee,
I have a 1 ½ year old dog who recently came up positive on a test for exposure to Lyme disease. On the advice of my veterinarian I started him on a 21 day course of antibiotics. Someone else mentioned to me that colostrum may also be helpful to boost the immune system. What do you think?
K.L.
Dear K. L.,
There seems to be two parts to your question. The first pertains to treating lyme disease with antibiotics, and the second to whether or not colostrum would be of any help. Let’s talk about lyme disease first.
This disease is so prevalent around here, it is something we deal with in humans and animals all the time. The bacteria causing lyme disease is transmitted by the bite of an infected tick. It is not transmitted animal to animal/human. You have to have the tick bite. Once the bacteria causing lyme disease is in the body, it can be difficult to get rid of. If an animal comes up positive for exposure to lyme, but does not show any symptoms (limping, fever, loss of appetite, or less commonly kidney or nervous system problems), there is some controversy over whether or not the animal should be treated with antibiotics. For the animal testing positive and showing symptoms, the choice to treat with antibiotic is more obvious. First we need to make sure the animal has been infected by the bite of a tick, as opposed to simply measuring antibodies the body produced in response to a vaccine. Luckily we now have tests that make it easy to determine whether or not the lyme exposure comes from a tick. Once we’re sure we’re dealing with live bacteria in the body, we decide whether or not to treat. I tend to agree with your veterinarian and treat with antibiotics with or without symptoms, simply to avoid more serious problems with the disease down the line. Sometimes if the animal is particularly young, healthy and asymptomatic, I’ll use Chinese herbs instead of antibiotics. There are veterinarians who will disagree with that and only treat if symptoms are seen, but I tend to err on the side of caution when the disease can be so deadly.
Now about colostrum. Colostrum is the milk produced by a mother right after she has given birth (all mammals produce it). It is special milk which contains high levels of antibodies designed to protect the young from disease until they can develop their own immune system. It may also help stimulate their immune systems to develop. Newborns have particularly “leaky guts” which allow the protective antibodies in colostrum to be absorbed. The real question then becomes whether or not colostrum can help an adult whose gut has “closed” and will no longer allow such large molecules to pass. This is a relatively new area of study, but there is good evidence that it may work. For example, a study published in June 2005 by Polish researchers (Zimecki M. and Artym J.) did show that colostrum given to adult humans can help protect the “good” bacteria in the gut, help strengthen the immune system in sick people and more. There are also other herbs and supplements which can accomplish this goal and are likely used more frequently, but in your case, if you have the colostrum and your dog tolerates it well, I would recommend you go ahead and use it.
Now just try to avoid any more ticks…..
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