Health Tips

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Research and development continues to propel Cell Tech forward as a leading nutrition company. Scientific documentation has now begun to explain why people feel positive effects in their body when eating algae.

The March 23, 1999 “Reuters Health” contained a report about a new study showing that rats eating blue-green algae dietary supplements had reduced levels of circulating cholesterol.

Contributing to the study was Dr. Rafail Kushak, and colleagues at Harvard medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, and Christian Drapeau of Cell Tech in Klamath Falls, Oregon. The findings were presented at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society, held in Anaheim, California.

Past studies have suggested that high dietary intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) may help lower blood cholesterol levels.

The researchers point out that PUFAs comprise nearly 10% of the dry weight of a blue-green algae known as aphanizomenon flos-aquae, which grows naturally in North American lakes.

THE STUDY
To show algae’s impact on cardiovascular health, the investigators fed laboratory rats either a standard diet supplemented with 5% soybean oil (another source of PUFAs), or a PUFA-deficient diet fortified with increasing amounts of dried blue-green algae (up to 15%).

THE RESULTS
The researchers report that algae “is a better source of PUFA than soybean oil and has significant hypocholesterolemic (cholesterol-lowering) properties.” According to Kushak and colleagues, rats fed diets supplemented “with 10% and 15% algae decreased their blood cholesterol level to 54% and 25% of those rats fed the standard diet.”

It was also noted that algae may also be a highly efficient source of alpha-linolenic acid (LNA). While both soybean oil and blue-green algae contain LNA, the scientists noted that rats required triple the amount of soybean oil in their diets to achieve the same level of circulating LNA of rats fed algae.

The finding suggests that the LNA in algae may be more efficiently absorbed into the digestive system than the LNA found in soybean oil.

Overall, the study results suggest that the benefits of algae supplementation exceed those of soybean oil, despite the fact that the oil contains amounts of PUFA equal or greater to that found in algae. The researchers conclude ‘that the hypocholesterolemic effect of aphanizomenon flos-aquae is likely influenced by other than its fatty acid content.”

CONCLUSION
The results of these studies suggest that aphanizomenon flos-aquae has a positive effect on the cholesterol levels in laboratory animals. In the next phase of this research, Cell Tech will be collaborating with medical research universities in a series of human clinical studies to determine whether aphanizomenon flos-aquae can help maintain healthy blood cholesterol levels in humans.