Goat's Milk & Inflammation

Pain from chronic inflammation can affect many parts of the body. While drugs can often relieve this pain, goat's milk offers a natural alternative for soothing inflammatory conditions.

Inflammation

• The body responds to injury or infection by sending white blood cells to the trouble site. Pain from inflammation may be acute, as in injury, or chronic, as in arthritis or irritable bowel disease.

Goat's Milk

• Goat's milk has a long-held reputation as a home remedy for inflammation. The Arthritis Pain Cure Center mentions that 1 quart of goat's milk per day may relieve arthritis.

Oligosaccharides

• According to a Spanish study printed in the March 2006 Journal of Nutrition, goat's milk gets its anti-inflammatory properties from oligosaccharides. These sugars nourish the "good" bacteria that protects the digestive tract from harmful micro-organisms.

Findings

• The Spanish study on rats found that oligosacccharides from goat's milk reduced the kinds of inflammation associated with colitis.

Possible Therapeutic Use

• The Spanish study concluded that goat's milk may prove a useful alternative to anti-inflammatory medications for irritable bowel disease.