Joe Wicks and the truth about adults drinking breast milk

Joe Wicks, the loveable fitness guru with really great hair, famed for cajoling us into working out during the pandemic, has taught us many valuable lessons. He’s empowered us to star-jump our troubles away, cook nutritious meals at home and focus on improving our sleep. It’s all been very sound advice. But his latest trick is slightly more left field. He’s admitted to drinking… erm… his wife’s breast milk.

In a video that’s swiftly gone viral, Wicks asks his wife, Rosie, to save him some of the breast milk she’s expressing on their way to a Taylor Swift gig. The next clip sees Wicks gladly knocking back a cup of the stuff and beaming with glee. His review? “Like natural vanilla milk. The energy and nutrients in that is unbelievable!” he tells the camera. “I wouldn’t have it on me porridge or cereal, but it’s nice for a little shot now and again.”

Wicks wouldn’t be the first celebrity to shout about the supposed health benefits of breast milk. Pussycat Doll Ashley Roberts admitted on Good Morning Britain that she tried her friends’ breast milk when she heard there were “a lot of nutrients in it”. She compared it to “sweet almond milk”. Kourtney Kardashian, the reality star who gave birth to her fourth child in December, told fans that she glugged a glass of her own breast milk as a remedy when she was feeling sick. “I just pounded a glass of breast milk because I feel sick. Goodnight!” she wrote online with very little context. She’s been singing the mystical healing qualities of breast milk for a while now, too. In an episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians in 2013, when she was pregnant with her daughter Penelope, she applied her milk to her sister Kim Kardashian’s leg in a wild effort to soothe a patch of psoriasis.

There are plenty more mysterious claims about the health benefits for adults who drink breast milk: some bodybuilders have said they drink it to help improve muscle strength (and mothers have made thousands by selling it to them online). Other corners of the internet purport it can treat skin issues like acne, ageing, and eczema, and even heal cuts. Some say it’s great for your hair too, and Wicks certainly does have an impressive, flowing mane. But do these theories have any scientific backing at all? Well, no. There is none.

In a world where we’re constantly surrounded by maddening wellness fads, breast milk might be the oldest one in the book. Amie Alexander, a registered dietitian at nutritional supplement company Nutri Peak, tells me that breast milk is a “powerhouse of nutrition” for infants – the emphasis, here, is on the word “infants”. There’s no scientific evidence to suggest that consuming it or applying it to your skin has any benefits for the adult body. “In breast milk, babies get much-needed nutrients, antibodies, and growth factors that are perfectly suited for them to grow and develop,” explains Alexander. “But when it comes to adults, those nutritional benefits are minutely minimal.”

The idea that a bodybuilder could gain any muscle mass by gulping a shot of breast milk, like a pre-workout protein drink, is a total fallacy, too. Alexander says that breast milk does contain immunoglobulins, which are antibodies, and lactoferrin, a protein found in human milk, but these substances are only beneficial for… you may sense a pattern here… actual babies. “These are only really useful in the infant stage and unlikely to benefit an adult organism working in that context of bodybuilding,” she explains.

Now, I don’t want you to think I’m crying over any spilt milk, here. But there are reasons to be concerned. Adult consumption of human milk has never been recommended by any official health organisation, and the World Health Organisation actually advises against it. There are health risks that accompany adult consumption of human milk, which range from infection to microbiological contamination. “Apart from the fact that there is no proof regarding its nutritional value, there are also possible health risks like infected diseases,” says Alexander. “Breast milk is a body fluid and hence is always prone to having bacteria or viruses; without proper screening, it could be contaminated and hence is not fit for consumption.”

Sure, Joe Wicks wasn’t advising his 4.7 million followers to stockpile breast milk and have it on their bran flakes, or in a morning smoothie. But he does teach the public about nutrition, so you’d hope he’d know his stuff. Personally, I’ll be sticking to the Alpro.