I’m still waffling about whether or not to add a galactalogue to my program. When most people on this board say “galactagogue”, including me, what they actually mean is “prolactin secretagogue”. The problem is that those two things are not exactly the same, and it’s not completely clear what prolactin does for breast growth.
The interaction between prolactin and the sex hormones is complicated, and I won’t claim to understand it all, but in some ways they seem to oppose each other. Very high progesterone and estrogen during pregnancy prevent the high prolactin levels from causing lactation, but don’t prevent prolactin from causing the growth of alveoli (the structures that hold milk). Very high prolactin levels decrease the body’s production of progesterone and estrogen, but slightly elevated progesterone levels, can either increase or decrease the levels of the sex hormones in different women seemingly at random. The reasons for the variation in prolactin response between women are apparently unknown, but may be genetic.
More importantly, as far as I can tell, prolactin does not increase fat in the breasts in any way. It only promotes the swelling of breast tissue, milk engorgement, and the growth of alveoli. <meta charset="UTF-8">At least that’s what I think I understood from what I’ve read. I’m not sure how much the increased size of the alveoli actually contributes to total breast size. It could be a little or it could be a whole lot. I really have no idea. There are many reasons why the breast sometimes enlarge so much during pregnancy, and it’s not just because of the enlarged alveoli.
People on this board used to say that even if prolactin does not directly cause growth of fat cells in the breast on its own, it somehow “tells” estrogen and/or phytoestrogens to increase body fat mainly in the breasts rather than in the hips, thighs and tummy. But I can’t figure out where they got that idea, and so far I haven’t been able to find any evidence that it’s true. Everything I’ve read so far seems to imply that high prolactin levels increase visceral fat (fat under the abs, around the organs). In other words, prolactin actually seems to promote androgenic (masculine) fat distribution.
Another thing that makes me hesitant is that many NBE herbs that people think of as galactagogues may not increase breast milk by increasing prolactin, and some might not even really be effective galactagogues at all. That doesn’t mean that they don’t work for NBE, it just means that their effectiveness is not necessarily proof that high prolactin levels are good for NBE.
This issue is even more complicated by the fact that some popular, and apparently effective, programs such as “Grow Yours” (a massage only program) focus only on increasing prolactin in order to cause temporary swelling, alveoli development, and mild milk engorgement. The creator of the program freely admits that the results are only temporary unless you are willing to continue with regular massages for the rest of your life. If you’re following a prolactin-focused program, then a drop in estrogen or progesterone may not interfere with breast enlargement, and using too many strong phytoestrogens might actually prevent the program from working, assuming that mild milk engorgement is really the main goal of the program.