Substance in breast milk can kill forty kinds of cancer cells

April 2010

Researchers at Gothenburg University, Sweden have discovered a constituent of breastmilk called alpha lactalbumin, causes cell suicide in over fourty types of cancer.

The team been looking at the antibiotic properties of breast milk when a researcher noticed that cancerous lung cells in a test tube died on contact with breast milk.

They discovered that when alphalactalbumin was mixed with acid (as also found in breastmilk and the stomach of breastfed infants) a compound named HAMLET was formed (human alphalactalbumin made lethal to tumour cells)

Researcher gave a period of 5 days treatment to patients with bladder cancer. They injected Hamlet into the respondents’ body through the catheter and discovered patients urinated dead cancer cells after each treatment

Studies with rats showed that after just seven weeks a highly invasive brain cancer called glioblastoma was seven times smaller in those treated with HAMLET.

The most important factor is that the substance has no side effects, it only eliminated cancer and does not harm healthy cells.” the major achievement is an unintentional discover when they were only testing the antimicrobial properties of breast milk

Currently there are limitations to complete the preliminary study because Hamlet must be accurately injected into cancer cells. Researchers are therefore now focusing on how HAMLET can be taken up into tumour cells, Karlsson said: “If a doctor can put it into the venous blood flow to tumor cells, it can also produce the same effect.”

The product has also been made into a cream and tested on warts (which share the same growth properties as tumours) and found to reduce their size by 75 per cent in 20 volunteers. This could have implications for the treatment of cervical cancer, which is linked to the human papilloma virus.

Karlsson predicted that this therapy would be widely used for adult cancer patients in 5 years.

Research shows that infants not breast-fed babies have an increased risk of many infant and adult illnesses, including cancer.