Kate Sharp wrote:

"Chronic mastitis is really a trial for mothers.  I think we need more
answers than we have."

I would agree with that statement.  I get the feeling that we have borrowed
alot of terminology about mastitis from the dairy industry.   Alot of the
studies on human mastitis use as a reference, studies done on cows.  While I
suppose it might be helpful in a general way, I don't think it helps us in
the long run.  The dairy industry is about a factory system geered to
overproduction.  Cows do not supply their young with their milk, they are
stimulated to oversupply milk for humans.  So the system is already out of
wack and may have little correlation to human breastfeeding. If some of our
beliefs and practices are based on the dairy industry, how correct are they?

I also wanted to mention a question that I have in regard to chronic
mastitis--particularly when LC's on this list say they are seeing more and
more of this condition.  Has anyone ever thought of the connection between
the ingestion of rBST milk (which is the recombinant hormone supplied to
dairy cows to stimulate milk production and causes a 15% rise in mastitis in
cows) and women who ingest this milk or meat having chronic mastitis.  I
don't think that Monsanto or any of the companies that produce this
engineered hormone for dairy cows have done any studies on whether this might
effect a lactating woman.  These companies believe that rBST because it is
orally digested would pass through the system without any effect on the human
body.  But there are studies that suggest otherwise.  rBST increases the
production of IGF-1 (insulin like growth factor) by a 10-fold factor.
According to studies bovine IGF-1 is identical to human IGF-1.  How do humans
and in particular the lactating woman respond to an increase in IGF-1?  IGF-1
is implicated in diabetes and interestingly enough diabetic women are more
likely to get mastitis. Studies are suggesting various cancers--breast,
prostrate, etc.--but I wonder if this might also be responsible for mastitis
in women.  According to Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center a
definition of chronic mastitis is that it is not an infection but is caused
by hormones affecting breast tissue.  So would this hormone in our milk
(USA), be a cause for the increase in chronic mastitis or mastitis in
general?  Don't know...but just wondering....Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

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