Transfer factors are all natural substances that work by “teaching” your own immune system to identify infectious agents that attack your body. Transfer factors are very small components naturally found in colostrum, a baby’s first milk from its mother. Through an extraction process, companies are able to collect powerful transfer factor molecules from the first milk of cows and prepare them for human consumption. Chickens are also used in the production of specific transfer factors.
All mammals produce transfer factors. A healthy cow already produces millions of different transfer factors, but when the cow does come into contact with a pathogen such as a virus, it produces a new transfer factor for that specific virus or pathogen. Transfer factors cross mammalian species lines. When a person absorbs transfer factors from a cow’s colostrum, the person develops resistance to the pathogen to which the cow was exposed.
To keep your body healthy, your immune system must do three very important things each time your body comes in contact with a pathogen: First it must first recognize the pathogen as a threat to the body; second, it must then attack and kill off the threat; and third, it must remember that pathogen so that your body can rid itself quickly of it the next time it is attacked. For example, when a person has been infected with chickenpox in childhood, the body develops a memory of that illness which prevents the person from becoming re-infected later in life.
It is the identification process of the immune system that is so critical. If your body can identify a pathogen quickly, it can mount a response against it quickly. By transferring information from cell to cell, transfer factors serve as “teachers” of new cells, thereby ensuring a stronger immune system.
For individuals challenged by specific pathogens, whether known or unknown, supplementation with the appropriate transfer factor molecule may provide the ‘missing link’, thereby allowing the immune system to target and destroy the offending pathogen, whether bacterial or viral, and mitigate the symptoms of the disease.
Chronically ill people may need to take a multipurpose transfer factor preparation for several months before starting to feel better.
Some companies have a selection of products, some designed to boost the immune system, and others to help balance it in case of overactivity or autoimmunity. One such company is Immunofoods or IMMC.
Colostrum / Transfer Factor can help with the following
Chronic Fatigue / Fibromyalgia Syndrome
Many CFS and Fibromyalgia (FM) patients have reported great benefit with the use of transfer factors. In one small study of FM, Natural Killer (NK) cell activity increased by 169%, and patients reported feeling much better. [Rob Robertson, M.D. 2066 South 950 East, Provo, UT 84606 ]
Immune System Imbalance (TH2 Dominance)
Transfer factor augments cell-mediated immunity or pushes a TH2 to a TH1 state. This is useful in TH2-dominated conditions. Transfer factor may help to rebalance a TH2 dominant Immune system.
Hepatitis
Hepatitis Specific Transfer Factors from colostrum were used in 260 cases and a 100% clinical recovery was reported with no side effects. Immunological profiles were normalized in approximately half of the individuals at the end of the observation period. I have not been able to find a reference for this information, so it must be viewed with caution.
Key
| May do some good |
| Likely to help |
| Avoid absolutely |
Glossary
Immune System
A complex that protects the body from disease organisms and other foreign bodies. The system includes the humoral immune response and the cell-mediated response. The immune system also protects the body from invasion by making local barriers and inflammation.
Colostrum
The first (immunologically rich) milk produced by lactating mothers after giving birth. Usually collected within 24 or 36 hours. Usual sources are cows.
Transfer Factor
Protein immunomodulators extracted from colostrum from immunologically stimulated animals that promotes specific immunity to certain antigens such as viruses.
Virus
Any of a vast group of minute structures composed of a protein coat and a core of DNA and/or RNA that reproduces in the cells of the infected host. Capable of infecting all animals and plants, causing devastating disease in immunocompromised individuals. Viruses are not affected by antibiotics, and are completely dependent upon the cells of the infected host for the ability to reproduce.