# How old could someone live on only human milk? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 7, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952 "2012-10-07T01:24:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/1 "2012-10-07T01:24:58Z")
Assuming there was no problem with the supply, how old could someone live on only human breast milk? Could someone live to 98 and die relatively healthy in his bed? Has there ever been such a case of someone with a large enough aggregation of power, wealth and madness that has actually decided to live on only human breast milk, and how did that work out? ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/2 "2012-10-07T01:54:18Z")
Is this milk coming from his mother only, or is he allowed to drink any human milk? One obvious problem is that by the time most people reach 98, their mother has already died. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Shine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr_shine/32/464_2.png) [@Mr\_Shine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Shine)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/3 "2012-10-07T01:59:09Z")
The “supply is no problem” was to indicate that there was as much milk as you needed coming in. I would guess at the very minimum an adult human would require about 20 “wet-nurses”, although I’m not sure exactly. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/4 "2012-10-07T02:43:36Z")
In no way an answer to the OP’s question, but you can [buy human milk ice cream in London](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/25/human-milk-ice-cream-sale). Just if, you know, you wanna. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/5 "2012-10-07T02:46:49Z")
Feeding time would be the problem. An adult would want the milk faster that the breast could express it. I guess you could have the wet-nurses manually express themselves, but how fun is that? ---
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/6 "2012-10-07T03:16:47Z")
The most important factor would be the vitamins and minerals present in human breast milk; a lack of any of them would eventually cause death from deficiency (or malnutrition if there is just enough); then again, you would probably get all of the nutrients you need and then some since growing babies need more of some nutrients than adults (but less of others). That would be a problem if one tried drinking cow’s milk instead, a much more practical thing to do; at least, [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_breast_milk#Comparison_to_other_milks) says it doesn’t have enough Vitamin E or essential fatty acids, but the amounts that an adult human would consume to meet their caloric requirements might be enough, but it would also be a very high protein diet; using 1% milk, which has 100 calories per cup, you would need about 20 cups a day, which contains 160 grams of protein, more than you’d need unless you were a bodybuilder, but then you’d be eating even more (while Wikipedia says it has too much sodium and potassium for an infant, it wouldn’t be excessively high in [sodium or potassium](http://health-diet.us/sodium-potassium-ratio/) for an adult; you’d get about 880 mg of sodium and 3,000 mg of potassium, a pretty healthy ratio, especially since the average diet is more like the reverse, although you’d far exceed the tolerable upper intake for calcium (2,500 mg) with about 6,000 mg per day). ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/7 "2012-10-07T03:24:11Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > In no way an answer to the OP’s question, but you can [buy human milk ice cream in London](http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/feb/25/human-milk-ice-cream-sale). > > Just if, you know, you wanna. There’s also [breast milk cheese.](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/03/09/breast-milk-cheese.html) Given the limited supply, it will probably remain a cottage industry. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/8 "2012-10-07T03:32:34Z")
There’d be a problem with sufficient iron. From the wiki-link supplied by **Michael63129** > [@](#): > > However, the internal iron supplies of the infant, held in the hepatic cells of the liver, are exhausted at 4–6 months, hence this is the time that complementary feeding is introduced, as to prevent anemia (recommended by WHO). ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2012, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-old-could-someone-live-on-only-human-milk/636952/9 "2012-10-07T04:43:11Z")
> [@runner pat](#): > > …Given the limited supply, it will probably remain a cottage industry. I see what you did there.