Oral administration of bovine lactoferrin for treatment of tinea pedis. A placebo‐controlled, double‐blind study

Abstract

A clinical study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of lactoferrin, which is a protein component of cow's milk, in the treatment of tinea pedis. Doses of either 600 mg or 2000 mg of lactoferrin, or a placebo was orally administered daily for 8 weeks to 37 adults who were judged to have mild or moderate tinea pedis. Dermatological improvement and antifungal efficacy were assessed. In the analysis of all subjects, dermatological symptoms scores in all groups decreased but the differences were not statistically significant comparing the three groups. However, in the analysis limited to subjects with moderate vesicular or interdigital tinea pedis, dermatological symptoms scores in the lactoferrin-treated groups decreased significantly in comparison with the placebo group (P < 0.05). The organisms isolated were Trichophyton rubrum and Trichophyton mentagrophytes. A mycological cure was not seen in any of the subjects. In the 37 subjects there were no adverse events and no subject withdrew from the study because of an adverse event. These results suggest that orally administered lactoferrin can improve the dermatological symptoms in some subjects. The potential usefulness of lactoferrin as a functional food material for treating tinea pedis was seen for the first time in this study.

Effect of orally administered bovine lactoferrin on the immune response in the oral candidiasis murine model

“…LF has a number of biological functions, including antimicrobial and immunomodulatory effects in vitro and in vivo (Brock, 1995;Tomita et al, 2002;Vorland, 1999). It has been reported that orally administered bovine LF reduces the number of pathogenic organisms not only in the gastrointestinal tract (Teraguchi et al, 1995;Wada et al, 1999) but also in tissues distant from the gastrointestinal tract in several animal models of infection (Abe et al, 2000;Bhimani et al, 1999;Haversen et al, 2000) and in humans with chronic hepatitis C and tinea pedis (Ishii et al, 2003;Iwasa et al, 2002;Yamauchi et al, 2000). It is known that LF and an LF-derived antimicrobial peptide, lactoferricin B (LFcin B), inhibit in vitro growth of fungi such as Candida albicans (Kuipers et al, 1999;Wakabayashi et al, 1996Wakabayashi et al, , 1998 and Trichophyton mentagrophytes ; it has been shown that orally administered LF shows a host-protective effect against systemic C. albicans infection in mice (Abe et al, 2000) and cutaneous T. mentagrophytes infection in guinea pigs .…”

Effect of lactoferrin feeding on the host antifungal response in guinea-pigs infected or immunised with Trichophyton mentagrophytes

“…It is increasingly appreciated that oral administration of LF or its fragment peptides improves the survival rate and enhances elimination of pathogens from the body of animals or human patients infected with bacteria, fungi, protozoa or viruses [3][4][5][6][7]. Recent studies showed that feeding bovine LF enhances the elimination of pathogens and the rate of symptomatic cure in guinea-pigs and man with dermatophytosis, a very common fungal infection on the skin [8,9]. LF exhibits in-vitro growth-inhibitory activity against the dermatophytes Trichophyton mentagrophytes and T. rubrum, causative fungi of dermatophytosis [8].…”

Recombinant Human Intelectin Binds Bovine Lactoferrin and Its Peptides

“…11) Beneficial effects of orally administered bLF on infections and iron status have also been recently demonstrated in clinical trials in human adults and infants. [12][13][14][15] It has been reported from an in vitro study that brush border membranes prepared from human fetal small intestine showed higher affinity to hLF compared to bLF. 16) Binding of IntL to LF has been demonstrated only in a combination of receptors and ligands of human origin.…”