Human milk could transform treatment of deadly diseases in infants

Photo supplied by Australian Red Cross Lifeblood.

12 February 2025

Researchers from the ‘Monash Milk Team’ have published a new study demonstrating the power of human milk as a highly effective vehicle for administering certain medicines to infants.

In this preclinical study, the team found the amount absorbed of a medicine called clofazimine – its oral bioavailability – increased by more than 2.5-fold when administered with human milk.

Similarly, the oral bioavailability of clofazimine was significantly higher when administered in both human and bovine (cow) milk using a neonatal piglet model, suggesting comparable enhancement in oral bioavailability could be achieved with human or bovine milk.

Clofazimine has previously been used in the treatment of leprosy and is currently used to treat tuberculosis – the world’s top infectious killer. In the context of this study, the researchers were testing how they could enhance the absorption of clofazimine among infants with the parasitic disease, cryptosporidiosis.

Cryptosporidiosis is responsible for significant diarrheal morbidity and mortality in under-5 children in low- and middle-income countries and in recent years clofazimine has been used as a treatment option in these settings.

The problem with using clofazimine for treating infants is that its effectiveness is limited by its inability to dissolve in our gastrointestinal contents. Human milk solves this problem by providing a favourable environment for the clofazimine to dissolve into, without needing other potentially toxic components to be included with the drug.

Read the full article here.