'Feeding my breast milk to my dying dad gave him an extra year of life,' says daughter

A mum-of-two believes she gave her terminally ill father an extra year of life by feeding him her breast milk.
Helen Fitzsimmons, 40, pumped her one-year-old son's milk and gave it to her father Arthur after he was diagnosed with cancer. Arthur had already been fighting myeloma cancer - which affects bone marrow - for
four years when he was told he also had prostate cancer in October 2013.
Desperate to help, Helen started researching treatments and came across medical evidence which showed breast milk can boost the immune system .
After tentatively approaching the subject with mum Jean, Arthur told Helen: 'Anything is worth a go.'
From then on her father would regularly drink her milk.
Helen, of Cheltenham, said: "The first time dad tasted my milk from a glass he drank it down in one go. He looked at me and smiled, then said 'this tastes fine'.

"I know there are some people who may find this all a little strange but when someone you love is suffering you would do anything to help them.
"I'd found a way to help my dad and I took it. It gave him hope and he lived 16 months after being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
"That was a year longer than we expected after that and I'm sure it was my breast milk that helped."
Arthur was diagnosed with myeloma cancer aged 68 in 2009, a slow-moving but terminal cancer which raises protein levels, in turn lowering the immune system and weakening the bones.

He was undergoing treatment with chemotherapy drugs when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in October 2013.
Helen said: "It was absolutely crushing for us because dad was now dealing with two cancers. As a family we tried to stay clam but we were so worried."
It was then Helen, who was breastfeeding her son Cassius was just a year old, starting trawling the Internet for treatment and found ground-breaking research into the power of breast milk.
Research has shown that it boosts the immune systems and babies that are breast-fed have lower blood pressure and are less likely to be obese in later life.
Swedish scientists discovered in 1995 that a protein in the milk appeared to destroy cancer cells in the laboratory.
Arthur's battle with prostate cancer was proving tough, but the family were left amazed when doctors told them his protein levels - which kept rising due to his myeloma - had stopped increasing. Mirror