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I've been having this discussion with a friend. He has been suggesting that I try goat's milk as it would help with my stomach problems.

After looking around, I found some claims about how goat's milk has anti-inflammatory properties.

A few red flags were raised because he showed me a bottle powdered goat's milk with a brand of all natural supplement products. All the claims that I found were either on forums and websites that are proponents of the whole all natural eating woo.

Is there anything to goats milk as an anti-inflammatory?

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    What is the whole all natural eating woo?
    – gerrit
    Jan 19, 2013 at 22:57
  • Pretty much every pediatrician i met indicated that goat milk is preferable for kids vs. cow's milk for a wide variety of reasons. I don't recall if "anti-inflammatiry" was one.
    – user5341
    Jan 22, 2013 at 0:41

1 Answer 1

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He has been suggesting that I try goats milk as it would help with my stomach problems.

I would suggest visiting a doctor first and finding out whether you actually suffer from inflammation (and if so, what treatment he or she suggest). Stomach problems can have a huge variety of causes, inflammation only being one (and often a rather serious one).

Is there anything to goats milk as an anti-inflamatory?

It seems so, but much more research is needed to confirm this. This research (similar research) (both on rats, not on humans!) says:

Goat milk OSs [Oligosaccharides] are good candidates to serve as effective prebiotic anti-inflammatory agents in IBD. They have been shown to 1) inhibit the adhesion of bacteria to the epithelial membrane, 2) reduce bacterial translocation in cell models, and 3) promote the selective growth of lactobacillus and bifidobacteria (1,2,6). Goat milk was initially selected as a source because of its relatively high concentration (as compared with cow milk) and the presence of branched OSs (14). Because of its presence in milk, these compounds are generally considered nontoxic.

Their conclusion mentions the potential of goat milk, but they also say that further studies are needed:

In conclusion, goat milk OSs are anti-inflammatory when administered as a pretreatment in the TNBS model of rat colitis, a widely used preclinical model of IBD. Therefore, these compounds may be a valuable alternative to current therapies to treat IBD. Further studies are warranted to validate this approach.

I haven't been able to find any research conducted on humans.

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