Camel Milk: A Centuries-Old ‘Superfood’ as Diabetes Treatment

John Watson August 09, 2021, and Dr. Rajesh Jain MD, If requested to think about camel milk, many will forever name the emblematic picture of a humped animal crossing the horizon in a blazing desert. What they probably may not think about is a chilly glass of milk. But that could quickly change, way to studies uncovering the sudden healing cap potential contained inside camel milk. Although this could appear uncommon to many withinside the Western world, wherein camel milk stays highly difficult to understand the dairy product, it’d infrequently benefit a 2nd concept amongst the one’s maximum familiar with those resilient beasts of burden. Dr. Mohammed Ayoub “The useful consequences of camel milk for human nutrients and fitness had their beginning from spiritual notion and religion in the specific Muslim groups withinside the world, which includes the Arab nations of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates,” wrote Mohammed Ayoub, Ph.D., accomplice professor of biology, and Sajid Maqsood, Ph.D., accomplice professor of meals science, at UAE University, in a joint interview with Medscape.

Dr. Mohammed Ayoub

For the human beings of those and different areas wherein camels thrive, their milk has long been a staple meals source, commonly ate up in clean or spontaneously fermented form. It has also been used for hundreds of years as a conventional remedy for illnesses from tuberculosis to gastroenteritis. Numerous research has found that camel milk has the various sought-after bioactive houses of so-called “superfoods.” It’s “anti” withinside the maximum wonderful ways: antihypertensive, antimicrobial,

antioxidative, antithrombotic, antiulcerogenic. But what has won researchers’ interest the maximum is the favorable consequences camel milk seems to showcase in each animal and scientific research on numerous markers of diabetes, from glycemic management to insulin resistance.

Might these people’s treatments have new instructions for present-day diabetes researchers? What’s So Special About Camel Milk? Camels have domesticated around 3000 to 4000 years ago; that’s highly current amongst running animals (with the aid of using comparison, puppies have held their popularity as “man’s exceptional friend” for a minimum of 14,000 years).

Thanks to several specific adaptations, including the capacity to save approximately eighty lb (36.three kg) of fats in the one’s signature humps, camels can stroll a hundred miles and live on for almost a week in temperatures as much as 120°F (49°C) without water. Camels get the maximum from the least among herbivorous ruminants — the magnificence of animals that ferment their meals earlier than digestion. They eat the biggest sort of plant life and digest it extra successfully than cows. Nomadic peoples consider camels’ various diets a key contributor to the purported medicinal price in their milk.

Significant medical studies into camel milk’s houses commenced most effective in the ultimate 3 to 4 decades. It discovered that milk constructed from camels and cows presents similar tiers of fat, protein, lactose, and calcium on the maximum simple compositional level. But dig a bit deeper, and you will discover that camel milk possesses wonderful blessings over its bovine counterpart, along with extra tiers of nutrition C and vital minerals and greater digestible quality.

Children with acknowledged allergic reactions to cow’s milk had been proven to eat camel’s milk without incident because it would not seem to have equal cross-reactivity in those sufferers as milk from non-bovine mammals bred in European international locations. In fact, camel milk is nearer in substance to human milk: each characteristic α-lactalbumin because the main protein and absence β-lactoglobulin, the latter of that’s a not unusual place contributor to take advantage of allergic reactions.

Beyond its dietary value

camel milk composition might also additionally provide unique antidiabetic houses, in line with Nader Lessan, MBBS, MD, and Adam Buckley, MD, Ph.D., representative endocrinologists on the Imperial College London Diabetes Centre in Abu Dhabi, UAE, who’re presently undertaking a medical trial at the outcomes of camel milk on insulin and incretin response.

“Camel milk has been stated to comprise an insulin-like protein that doesn’t shape a coagulum withinside the acidic surroundings of the stomach,” they informed Medscape. “It has been recommended that the stated glucose-decreasing outcomes of camel milk would possibly as a minimum in component be mediated via this mechanism.” A current in vitro look at Ayoub and Maqsood shed and mild at the molecular and mobile mechanisms underlying camel milk’s antidiabetic outcomes.

                                                                                                  Dr. Sajid Maqsood

Dr. Sajid Maqsood “We recognized numerous bioactive peptide fractions from camel milk whey proteins that confirmed advantageous organic outcomes at the special molecular markers worried in diabetes (DPP- Inhibition dipeptidyl peptidase IV inhibition, in addition to human insulin receptor and its signaling at the extent of the cell). Such outcomes had been additionally characterized with the aid of using growth in glucose shipping in the cells,” they said. “This presents for the primary time a strong medical foundation for the anti-diabetic houses of camel milk.

” Getting the Most Out of Camel Milk”

People dwelling in international locations with geared-up get admission to camel milk are possibly already reaping its anti-diabetic benefits. For example, a camel breeding network in northern India observed that people frequently fed on its milk had a 0% chance of diabetes. Global manufacturing of camel milk has accelerated 4.6-fold considering 1961 (whilst records first commenced to be collected), suggesting its reputation extends past conventional regions.

Like the CAMELMILK challenge, European Union-supported efforts aim to reinforce hobbies withinside the Mediterranean region. More and greater consumers, from China to Australia, are searching out camel milk-primarily based products totally. In the United States, agencies like Desert Farms partner with Amish and Mennonite farmers to grow to manufacture.

This isn’t always to mention that camel milk can be with no trouble on grocery store cabinets each time soon. Although their numbers are increasing, camels stay a minor dairy species, accounting for  <1% of the world’s milk supply. As a niche product, it’s significantly more expensive than bovine and non-dairy milk variations. The daily dose of camel milk thought to improve diabetes markers is around 500 mL, which may be cost-prohibitive for many consumers.

Advice for Curious Patients

In the end, camel milk may provide the finest promise as a blueprint for designing new treatments, as concluded via way of means of Ayoud and Maqsood of their current study. Yet, as greater interest is paid to its proposed antidiabetic outcomes, it’s also probable that curious sufferers might also additionally need to strive the actual factor withinside the meantime. For such sufferers, what issues ought to clinicians preserve in mind? The first and fundamental is to keep away from camel milk in uncooked form. Although camel milk seems to have more antimicrobial residences than cow’s milk, it contains about an identical chance of containing E Coli and might harbor pathogenic traces, including Streptococcus or Staphylococcus.

Evidence shows that dromedary camels are the best animals that could host the pressure of the Middle East breathing syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) that infects humans. Although numerous research has indicated that camel milk improves glycemic manipulate and lowers insulin necessities amongst people with kind 1 diabetes, Lesson and Buckley strongly suggest sufferers with this ailment using it as an insulin substitute. They notice that “not one of the mechanisms we have got visible counseled for the outcomes of camel milk are simply relevant to the ailment method of kind 1 diabetes.

Dr. Tahereh-Mohammadabadi

As per Prof. Taherah, Camel milk lactoferrin; anti-viral agent against COVID-19 infections (Prof. Taherah Mohammadabadi Agricultural Sciences and the Natural Resources University of Khuzestan, Iran). The protective proteins and enzymes of camel milk like immunoglobulins, lactoferrin, lysozyme, lactoperoxidase, and peptidoglycan recognition protein have anti-microbial and immunological properties against infections. Camel milk has the highest concentration compared to other livestock. It was 10 times higher in comparison to cow’s milk.
(PDF) Camel milk lactoferrin; anti-viral agent against COVID-19 infections. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352769410_Camel_milk_lactoferrin_anti-viral_agent_against_COVID-19_infections

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348743166_Is_camel_milk_lactoferrin_effective_against_COVID-19

” There is likewise the problem of putting suitable expectancies for situations outdoor of diabetes. The literature surrounding camel milk is slanted toward effective consequences derived from research of variable great, which has brought about unfounded claims. This changed into on show whilst the United States Food and Drug Administration indexed camel milk amongst the goods and treatment options without proof to help their use in autism. Using camel milk actions from fundamental studies to medical research, its final healing fee in diabetes and past must become clearer. For a millennia-vintage treatment, there is nonetheless an awful lot to learn.

John Watson is a freelance writer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Dr. Rajesh Jain

Dr. Rajesh Jain MD PG Diploma Diabetes, UK

The diabetesasia is the advocate for the people currently living with diabetes Burden & NCDs Risk. Global Diabetes Walk campaign remind us to Prevent diabetes.

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