A growing online craze among some fitness communities, fetishists and chronic disease sufferers for buying and drinking human breast milk poses serious health risks, British experts said on Thursday.

Explaining their findings in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, specialists said there was small evidence to support the claims that the milk traded via websites in a lucrative market for adult buyers is some kind of a super food that can help in boosting health and fitness.

Doctors claim human breast milk could help to deal with erectile dysfunction and cancer has also shown no clues.

The experts also warned that raw and unpasteurized human breast milk bought online can expose consumers to many serious infectious diseases, including hepatitis, HIV and syphilis.

Dr. Sarah Steele, a specialist at the global health and policy unit at Queen Mary University of London in the journal, wrote that the milk purchased online is also potentially very hazardous if used to replace a healthy balanced diet.

“Potential buyers should be made aware that no scientific study evidences that direct adult consumption of human milk for medicinal properties offers anything more than a placebo effect”, Dr. Steele said.

She said the failure of women to sanitize properly when producing milk, failure to sterilize equipment properly, and improper or prolonged storage and transportation of milk can also expose consumers to bacterial food-borne illnesses.

Many online mothers claim that they have been tested for viruses during pregnancy; many do not realize that such screening needs to be undertaken regularly.

Sexual and other activities may expose the women to viruses that they may unwittingly pass on to consumers, said Dr. Steele.