Seagreens® Healthcare Summary - 24th Edition, 2011

Description

This is an alphabetical guide to the daily use of Seagreens® products in the general population. In a clinical setting Seagreens® Food Capsules and Food Granules provide a valuable nutritional input, and at higher doses for limited periods, a controlled nutritional adjunct to therapeutic intervention.

Seagreens® Iodine+ Capsules provide an ideal whole food source of iodine, and because of their naturally higher iodine content, can increase iodine intake when used together wth the Food Capsules and Granules.

Other Seagreens® products like our Culinary Ingredient and Salad & Condiment have synergistic nutritional profiles and offer further convenient ways of including seaweed especially in the elderly, children and in all special diets.

For example, 2 Food Capsules might be taken in the morning with the first meal, ensuring 1 gram per day of our mixed human food quality seaweeds. At other meals, a sprinkling of the Culinary Ingredient, or in vegetables or salad the soaked Salad & Condiment, might be used in addition to raise - very inexpensively - the total daily intake to 4 or 6 grams. Further discussion about uses and daily intake can be found below under Recipes, and How much in my diet?, and A healthy replacement for salt, and under Efficacy and Intake, a more detailed section toward the bottom of this document you are already reading.

The Mineral Salt, introduced in 2011, is a 50% unrefined Cornish Sea Salt with 50% Seagreens Culinary Ingredient in a glass shaker for use at the table or in much larger catering containers. This award-winning product came after several years' research to prove that Seagreens can effectively replace salt in bread and probably a wide variety of other manufactured foods.

Our Pet Granules provide consumers and veterinary practices with an unrivalled nutritional foundation for the daily diet and we continually receive reports of their efficacy in horses, dogs and cats, and in domestic livestock. More of this information can be found under Pet & animal health products, and Animal feed ingredients.

There are no known contra-indications or allergenic components. All Seagreens® products are 100% wild seaweed uniquely Certified inline with international Biodynamic® and Organic Standards and free of contaminants, toxic metals and microbial pathogens.

(Numbers in brackets throughout the text refer to the scientific research orother source of the information provided, listed in this section of the website under Research References)

Introduction

Seagreens® products have been developed to provide a convenient and complete dietary foundation for everyday use in the general population. Medical and dental practitioners are also using them with reported success in specific health problems.

Current information is presented below. We produce only pure wholefood products of the finest quality, from our own sustainable harvesting of wild Arctic wrack seaweeds which we call Seagreens®.

They are of particular interest in nutrition because they provide a natural, comprehensive balance of macro and micronutrients with no excessive components. Seagreens® are approved throughout the EU and the USA in line with Biodynamic and Organic Standards and comply with FSA and FDA labelling requirements.

Following research during 2007-8 at Sheffield Hallam University, England, Seagreens® is recommended by the government-sponsored Food Innovation project as an ideal nutritional replacement for salt in manufactured foods (219). Seagreens® is a trade mark registered throughout Europe and the United States of America.

Original research studies

We are grateful to receive reports, questions and comments whether or not conflicting with other findings. We hope this Summary will also be a useful forum for discussion. We are keen to obtain research assistance or requests for studies especially in preventive healthcare, autistic spectrum, attention deficit and hyperactvity disorders, cancer management, cardiovascular diseases, detoxification, inflammatory and metabolic disorders including obesity, neurological degenerative diseases, and other areas where existing research and the anecdotal evidence indicates the likely efficacy of our products.

In 2007 we were invited to participate in Food Innovation, a major research project at Sheffield Hallam University which sought to replace the most ubiquitous harmful ingredients with natural, healthy ingredients. The project was entirely independent, funded by the (British Government) Higher Education Funding Council for England. Seagreens® proved not only to provide a balance of all the mineral salts, but to behave as a natural preservative, so increasing shelf life, by significantly inhibiting the growth of microbial pathogens, stabilising the water content and acid-alkaline (pH) balance of the food in which it was an ingredient (190). 

We also began longer term horticultural research in cooperation with the National Horticultural Research and Development Foundation at Maharashtra in India. A series of controlled trials in ochra and onion crops during 2007-8 has encouraged us to pursue further trials in 2008-9, to verify the already positive data and if possible obtain conclusive results against conventional fertilisers. The initial project is briefly described in the English Journal of the Biodynamic Agricultural Association (191).

In 2008 we sponsored a controlled eczema study in London for a University thesis with positive early results due early 2009.

In 2009 we set up the Seaweed Health Foundation which sponsored an award-winning piece of research in obesity at the Sheffield Centre for Food Innovation in 2010.

Seagreens is today involved in a continuous programme of food and health research and education to pursue best practice and ensure the highest standards in the production and use of human food quality seaweed and its sustainability in the natural environment.

Corporate developments

Seagreens® products are distributed via indepedently managed wholesalers and retailers. Retailers are selected carefully to represent the Seagreens® brand. Retailers who stock or will obtain all our products and receive regular training are listed as Seagreens® Retail Partners.

Seagreens are available worldwide from mail order retailers, and from independent health stores, natural pharmacies and clinics in most major towns and cities in the UK including Nutri Centres, Planet Organic, Revital, and Whole Foods Market. Waitrose, a respected food supermarket, has stocked Seagreens® in some or all of its stores since 2000.

In 2007 Seagreens® began Europe's first original food industry research into the nutritional benefits of seaweed as a food ingredient, and in 2009 set in motion the formation of a not-for-profit research organisation for food and health research, the Seaweed Health Foundation.

In September 2008 a new business division, Seagreens® Certified Ingredients was formalised to further develop and expand co-operation with other manufacturers, especially in the food and health  industries, and with biodynamic and organic farmers and food producers.

In 2009 a new fully Organic joint venture began, for harvesting and production in Scotland. Hebridean Seagreens Ltd is based at Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. Hebridean Seagreens®, the new brand name, is Certified in the EU and USA by the Biodynamic Agricultural Association.

We also set up our first subsidiary, Seagreens AB based in Helsingborg, Sweden, to support our customers and developing market in Scandinavia, the Baltic countries and Russia. Customers in these countries can now encourage their local health store or clinic to stock our products or purchase directly on line at www.seagreensshop.se.

 

Harvesting

We currently harvest three closely related species of wild Wrack seaweeds: Ascophyllum (whistle wrack), Fucus (spiral wrack), and Pelvetia (channel wrack) - generically called 'Bladderwrack'.

These distinctive shallow water varieties have an unrivalled breadth and balance of nutrients, different from, for example, deep water kelp (laminaria species) and are affected by very different factors. For example Pelvetia is a very small plant, difficult to harvest, growing on the interitdal rocks. It has  exceptional mildness of flavour and acceptance among children.

Only fresh, living plants are harvested, cleaned, air-dried and immediately cracked, milled, micronised or puréed to produce a unique range of convenient, easily digestible forms. Whole seaweeds can be difficult to digest - not so with Seagreens®.

Nothing is extracted or added. There is no root or floating seaweed, no sand or extraneous material. Harvesting is sustainable, allowing the cut plants to grow again, and is carried out almost year-round among the conservation islands of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, and in summer off the coast of Arctic Lapland.

Fish farming is prohibited; even light industry is tightly controlled, and sea quality is independently monitored by Scottish National Heritage and the Norwegian government.

Manufacturing & quality assurance

Seagreens® was the first Organic European wild seaweed producer and remains the only ‘ocean-to-table’ product range in the world approved to Demeter and Soil Association Standards (respectively the leading European Biodynamic / Organic Certification body and the leading British Organic Certification body).

For more than a decade we have pioneered the harvesting and production of human food quality wild seaweed, initially off the Arctic coast of Lapland and now also among the islands of the Outer Hebrides.

Today we supply other Biodynamic and Organic food and animal feed producers - including Artisan Bread in Kent, Bart Spices in Bristol, Camphill Communities in Scotland, Natural Choice canine biscuits in Devon, Neal’s Yard Remedies in Dorset, Old Plaw Hatch Farm in West Sussex, Pukka Herbs in Bristol and Waitrose (the John Lewis Partnership) - who use Seagreens® Certified Ingredients in their products.

Our own consumer nutrition products are produced in a Class 8/9 Pharmaceutical Cleanroom to international GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) standards.

Yet where there is a good deal of scientific research into the possible use of a seaweed extract, or an isolated nutrient which might be found in the seaweed, we do not extract from or add to our natural product. All of our research is conducted on this basis. Why are we so devoted to keeping the whole food intact?

“The lack of variety of diets is the basis of many non-infectious health problems. Hundreds of medical studies demonstrate the link between fruit and vegetable consumption and lower risks of cancers and coronary- and obesity-related diseases. Extracting individual components from vegetables and making ‘veggie pills’ is less effective than eating the entire fruit or vegetable, which is more beneficial than the sum of its parts. Research has shown that the use of ‘junk food’ has psychologically depressive effects and encourages aggressive tendencies, while adding fruit and vegetables to the diet is associated with better-behaved, healthier citizens. It seems the answer is out there, and the choice is ours to pick” (82).

A similar sentiment is expressed by Dee Atkinson, Medical Herbalist and co-owner of Napiers, Britain's oldest herbal apothecary based in Edinburgh:

"Herbs have a synergistic effect, and the action of a combination of herbs is often more than the sum of the action of the individual herbs, and this is certainly the case with these (traditional herb formulations)" (224).

It is the same with Seagreens® - their combination of nutrients in such a naturally comprehensive balance has a value far beyond any sum of the individual nutrients. Moreover, even a single species is incapable of artificial replication or formulation. We also mix our seaweeds, as one might mix diferent herbs, and they do seem to have a remarkable efficacy.

"Tests have shown that effects beyond those expected from the components (of the seaweed) can be obtained. This strongly indicates that the composition and texture of the seaweed meal offers some extra benefits" - Professor Arne Jensen, Institute of Marine Biology, University of Tronheim, 4th March 1991.

Consumer products briefing

Seagreens® products provide convenient ways for consumers to include this remarkable wild food in their daily diet, as:

Food Capsules and Food Granules - three closely related varieties of Seagreens® - Pelvetia, Fucus, and Ascophyllum - are carefully micronized and mixed to provide a uniquely balanced and complete dietary foundation for continuous daily use. We do not powder Seagreens® because this can harm the minerals, nor do we overheat them: they are slowly air dried. Not to be confused with common deep-water kelp or freshwater algæ like spirulina, chlorella, or blue-green whose partial nutritional profiles are similar to other land vegetables; for dietary inclusion levels see ‘Efficacy and Intake’ near end of Summary

Iodine+ Capsules - Seagreens® specially micronised Ascophyllum nodosum wrack seaweed, is a vegan encapsulated pure food source including iodine at 350µg per capsule plus a balance of all the nutrients required for iodine metabolism with nothing added or extracted from the fresh seaweed (most ‘kelp’ capsules and tablets use common laminaria, a deep water seaweed often a by-product of industrial alginate extraction and containing additives such as fillers, binders and flowing agents and subjected to very high temperatures)

Culinary Ingredient - ready-milled grains of Seagreens® Ascophyllum nodosum wrack seaweed for use in raw or cooked food

Salad & Condiment - large dried pieces of Seagreens® Pelvetia canaliculata wrack seaweed to grind alone, mix with salt or herbs as a condiment, or soak in cold or warm water for addition to salads or warm vegetables

Pet Granules - a coarse granular form of Seagreen® Ascophyllum nodosum wrack seaweed, suitable for all pets and domesticated and farmed animals. Daily inclusion in feed ranges from 1g to 15g in different species, providing an ideal balancing whole food ingredient for performance and sound preventative health

Seagreens® provide most significantly all the micronutrients, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and compounds which may be absent in their natural form from manufactured and land grown foods (whether organic or not) due to soil deficiencies, food travel and storage, processing and preservation methods (6).

“In the last 50 years, runner beans have lost 100% of their sodium, watercress 90% its copper, broccoli 75% its calcium. Levels of other important minerals including magnesium, iron, phosphorous and potassium have also plummeted” (7).

Useful definitions

Essential nutrients: those which must be obtained from the diet because the human body cannot make it at all, or in sufficient quantity, to meet its needs for normal human metabolism and reproduction: most commonly some amino acids, fats, vitamins and minerals (97)

Micronutrients and trace elements: nutrients required in minute amounts such as some vitamins, and minerals like selenium (up to 200µg per day) rather than in larger amounts like the essential mineral calcium (up to 1.5 g per day). Some nutrients like selenium become toxic in larger quantities. At least 90 minerals in the soil are known to be essential.

“On the basis of his thoughts about the evolution of the importance of (mineral) elements to life, Shaw (150) made the following predictions: Vanadium will become a well-established trace element. Nickel will be found to play a role in a nutritionally significant co-ordination compound probably associated with an enzyme. Chromium will be similarly implicated. He also thought that the neglected element, Titanium, might soon be recognised as essential to the life of plants and animals. Aluminium, Silicon and especially Arsenic will be assigned hitherto unsuspected roles in living organisms, and Rubidium and Lithium merited further investigation. Based upon the findings since 1970, many of Shaw’s predictions may become realities” (151)

Micro-algæ: Spirulina, chlorella, both of which are blue-green algæ, quite different from seaweed. Micro-algæ grow n the surface of fresh water and have a nutritional profile akin to land vegetables (they do not grow in the ocean). Some, like ‘Klamath’ blue green algæ, are harvested in lakes, but the vast majority are farmed in enormous water-filled tanks, particularly in China and South-East Asia. Their nutritional profiles vary widely, largely depending on the quality and nutritional content of the water. In Seagreens® research no two brands were found to be alike. They do not present the broad micronutrient profile of seaweed.

Nutrition: the sum of all the processes involved in taking in nutrients, assimilating and utilizing them (147)

“Delve beneath the surface of the word nutrition and you suddenly realize you are dealing with the materials for the maintenance of life. Without adequate nutrition, we die. With nutrition, we shape our own physical and mental characteristics in a constant cycle of decay and renewal. This process is embodied in the maxim “we are what we eat...nutrition is now trhe most important method of managing my health. It is a discipine which forms the platform for all other contributory factors to my well-being; factors such as drug therapy, physiotherapy, exercise and of course, common sense...nutrition is like my own resistance force. It makes my body as inhospitable as possible for Parkinson’s to coexist with the rightful inhabitants of my brain” (180)

Key Consumer Issues

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Quote of 2008

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognise as food”
-Michael Pollan, food writer, in ‘In Defence of Food’, 2008 in which hepilloried nutritional science for fostering the idea that food isnothing more than the sum of its nutrients, spreading confusion anddietary hypochondria; and the $36 billion food industry that processesreal food into “edible food-like substances”.

Quote of 2009

“It’s not about yet another new range of the samekind of foods; (what is needed) is a fundamental change in the way weconsider reformulations and new products"
- Cathryn Higgs, Scientific & ResponsibleRetailing Manager speaking for The Co-operative Food stores, Britain’sfifth largest food retailer, addressing industry leaders at the annualBritish Food Industry’s New Product Development Conference atStratford, England, 2009.

 

Diet and the nutritional value of food

“Collectively there has been an average 19% loss in magnesium, a 29% loss in calcium, a 37% loss in iron, and a really alarming 62% loss in copper (iron and copper being the only trace elements analysed for in 1940)” - Mineral and trace element changes in Britain in 72 foods analysed annually between 1940 and 2002 from research by D. E. Thomas, DC, MRNT (2007) based on McCance & Widdowson, The Composition of Foods, 6 Editions, pub. Royal Society of Chemistry and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) including fruit and vegetables, meat and meat products, cheeses and dairy products.

The nutritional value of our food is in steep decline. A comparative study based on government tables published annually between 1940 to 2002 revealed that the iron recorded in the average rump steak fell by 55% over that period. Calcium is down 4% and magnesium 7%. Milk has lost 21% of its calcium and 62% of its iron, while cheddar cheese has lost 38% of its magnesium, 9% of its calcium and 47% of its iron. Changes in measuring the composition of food could account for some of the decrease, as could changes in the way food is stored and transported, but the Food Commission, an independent consumer watchdog, thinks the impact of intensive farming should be investigated.

“One of the key arguments is that today’s agriculture does not allow soil to enrich itself,” said its director Dr Tim Lobstein, “but depends on chemical fertilisers that don’t replace the wide variety of nutrrients which plants and humans need” (96).

Since 1945 there has been a 34% decline in vegetable consumption in the UK; only 13% of men and 15% of women are meeting the minimum daily requirement of 5 portions of fruit and vegetables. We also eat 59% less fish than we did then, even though fish is slimming, the principal source of omega-3 fatty acids, and possibly even more ‘natural’ than non-organically farmed meats (104).

“A deficiency of even a single trace element in a soil can prevent plants thriving, even if all the major nutrient elements, water and light are present in optimal amounts” (77).

In the 51 years from 1940 to 1991, farmed meat lost 41% of its calcium and 54% of its iron, while vegetables lost an average 50% calcium, 25% iron and magnesium, 76% copper and 59% zinc (97). To illustrate a mere fraction of the problem this presents, the body requires magnesium for 300 different daily enzyme reactions, zinc for 200, and so on.

For these micronutrients alone, there is no better natural source than Seagreens®. It is salutory to recall that the benefits of many micronutrients including those of over half the currently known trace elements were unrecognised until the 1970s (98). Over the same post-War period the saturated fat content of beef and chicken has risen by more than 400%, whilst essential omega-3 fats critical to the nervous, immune, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive and eliminatory systems have declined in the same proportion (99).

“Britons typically now eat 4 kilograms of additives annually, while the fat content of the average chicken has risen from 2% to 22%...our intake of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids has decreased while the connsumption of omega-6 fatty acids has gone through the roof...while...good health requires the two to be in balance...and the trans-fats routinely found in highly processed foods (eg. ready meals, sweets, crisps, salty snacks, takeaways) assume the same position in the brain as essential fatty acids” (103).

Cynicism and lack of courage and integrity among business managers is also widely responsible. In 2007, The Guardian (UK national newspaper) found that many popular food brands contain significantly more sugar than they did 10 or even 20 years ago.

"Investigators compared the nutritional content of a dozen leading consumer brands and found that 9 showed an increase in calories, sugar, or saturated fat. According to their labels, Kellogg’s Rice Krispies contain 36 more calories per 100g now than in 1983 - a rise of 10%. Häagen-Dazs Belgian Chocolate Ice Cream contains 16% more calories and 26% more fat than in 1994. Jordans Original Crunchy Bars contain 16% more calories than in 1986. In many cases, the change has occurred because, in response to health concerns over salt, manufacturers have removed some of the salt from their products and made up to the resulting loss of flavour by adding sugar and fats” (159).

And then there are media-hungry celebrities and the greedy exploitative types which feed on them and through them on gullible consumers in the general population.

“Thousands of young mothers-to-be are putting their children’s health at risk as a result of their unhealthy diets and ‘faddy’ weight loss regimes such as the high-protein, low-carbohydrate regime beloved by celebrities like Geri Halliwell and Jennifer Aniston. A new study of 12,000 women has shown that 4 in 10 young women have such poor diets that when they become pregnant their children are deprived of essential nutrients in the womb. The health of an unborn baby can be affected long before conception, because foetuses do not merely rely on the food consumed by the mother in pregnancy, but draw on nutrients stored in their bodies over preceeding months. Poor diets before and during pregnancy can leave children susceptible to a range of diseases in later life including diabetes and heart disease” (90).

Malnutrition, obesity, diabetes, heart disease and so many other health conditions are no longer the prerogative of states or social groups.

“Micronutrient malnutrition is a widespread problem throughout the world and has both health and economic consequences. The ultimate is increased mortality but other outcomes include blindness, poor cognitive development, reduced growth, lower worker productivity, higher morbidity and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Since the early 1980s, an immense amount of effort and resources have gone into identifying the extent and severity of micronutrient deficiencies in developing countries” (148).

The UN Standing Committee on Nutrition has recognised a new type of malnutrition which can be categorised as multiple micronutrient depletion, and this has been termed Type B malnutrition. Even where food can be grown the food is deficient in essential nutrients. “The overweight are just as malnourished as the starving, and nutritional programs in poor countries need to target rising obesity alongside hunger. We need a new definition of malnutrition because food availability is not really the issue. The quality of the food is the problem” (149).

"Independent research has shown that there has indeed been a declining mineral content in fruits, grains and vegetables over the past 50 years. Comparison of the mineral content of 20 fruits and 20 vegetables grown in the 1930s and 1980s shows several marked reductions in mineral content - statistically significant reductions in the levels of calcium, magnesium, copper and potassium in vegetables, and magnesium, iron, copper, potassium in fruit. The only mineral that showed no significant difference over 50 years was phosphorous. Water content increased and dry matter decreased" (229).

Data from DEFRA (the British Government's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) show that between 1940 and 1991 there was a 76% fall in the trace mineral content of foods, this figure being supported by similar research carried out by the USDA (Unitede States Department of Agriculture). The report alos showed that Organic produce can have as much as 50% higher levels of certain plant chemicals - phenolics, terpenes, alkaloids and sulphur compounds, some of which are related to natural plant defence mechanisms (230).

The effects of chemical farming on our food, its flavour and nutritional value are compounded by refining and food formulation processses in the food industry. One example is that in the digestion of white bread, chromium is required (by the body) to assimilate the starches. Chromium is reoved in the milling process; therefore the body has to supply it (and such other nutrients depleted or imbalanced by artificial 'foods') by robbing itself of such nutrients - if available - to complete the nutritional profile required for something approaching a healthy metabolism. "This is true for all refined foods. It is only recently (in history) that we have been exposed to these refining practices; previously our species had only used whole foods" (231)
 

Micronutrients in an ageing population

Ageing influences the requirement for micronutrients and despite lower energy requirements, dietary density of micronutrients must remain high. There is evidence of a greater need for vitamins B12, B6 and folate in older people owing to their reduction in absorption. Deficiencies in these micronutrients may impair cognitive function, immunity and stamina and may contribute to increased rick of megaloblastic anaemia and heart disease (185).

Although the body’s requirement for iron is lowest in old age, increased risk of iron deficiency anaemia may signal chronic blood loss from ulcers, reduced iron absorption due to lower stomach acid secretion, or overuse of medicines like aspirin that cause blood loss from the gastrointestinal tract (186).

Deficiencies of Micronutrients and Age Related Disease

In the June, 2011 issue of the FASEB Journal, Bruce N. Ames, PhD and Joyce C. McCann, PhD of California's Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute revealed why modest deficiencies of any vitamin or mineral can increase the incidence of age-related disease.

Dr Ames' triage hypothesis proposes that the body evolved to allocate frequently scarce micronutrients to short term survival or reproductive functions rather than to those that are protective of long term health. This phenomenon results in increasing damage to the tissues with nutrient deficiency, which elevates disease risk. Dr Ames' hypothesis was supported by an analysis of vitamin K dependent proteins, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in October, 2009.

The current review evaluates the effect of selenium deficiency on 12 of 25 known selenoproteins. Five of these selenium-dependent proteins are considered essential from an evolutionary perspective and seven are nonessential. Drs McCann and Ames found that modest selenium deficiency results in the loss of nonessential selenoprotein activities and concentrations, with the exception of one nonessential protein which they predict is conditionally essential. Mutations in selenoproteins lost with deficiency were discovered to result in characteristics in common with diseases that occur with aging. "The same set of age-related diseases and conditions, including cancer, heart disease, and immune dysfunction, are prospectively associated with modest selenium deficiency and also with genetic dysfunction of nonessential selenoproteins, suggesting that selenium deficiency could be a causal factor, a possibility strengthened by mechanistic evidence," the authors write. "Modest selenium deficiency is common in many parts of the world; optimal intake could prevent future disease."

"Understanding how best to define and measure optimum nutrition will make the application of new technologies to allow each person to optimize their own nutrition a much more realistic possibility than it is today," noted Dr McCann, of the Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute's Nutrition and Metabolism Center. "If the principles of the theory, as demonstrated for vitamin K and selenium, can be generalized to other vitamins and minerals, this may provide the foundation needed."

Breadth and balance of seaweed nutrients

Whilst the land has been losing its nutrients for millions of years (accelerated by intensive farming), and the rain does not recycle them (74), these remarkable ocean vegetables do re-absorb all the nutrients leached from the land and we can thus return them to the soil, to plants, and directly to animal and human foods. That, conducted with utter integrity and regard for all our relationships, is one of Seagreens®  principal objectives.

"Marine plants by themselves form the very basis for all other forms of life to exist or continue to survive"
T. V. Desikachery, a leading seaweed scientist (158).

Of all seaweeds, the 'Brown' algæ are the most nutritious, and of these the 'wrack' seaweeds have the broadest balance of nutrients, and among these, due to their unique Arctic habitat and evolution, Seagreens® Arctic wrack varieties are widely considered to be outstanding. These Norwegian seaweeds have been the subject of more research in the past 50 years than any other. For example, the balance of mineral salts bears remarkable similarity to that in our own cellular fluid.

"Seaweed is the most nutritious form of vegetation on this planet...it contains almost the whole alphabet of nutrients" (8)

Seagreens® contain a unique balance of all the minerals and trace elements of particular value when it is considered "necessary that we consume some 20 different vegetables in the proper proportions, and that these vegetables have been grown in soil that is sufficiently rich in nutrients and free from the many different chemical products now in common use" (214)

"So concentrated in minerals that they are normally used as a supplementary item in recipes to provide a mineral foundation for better utilization of protein and all other nutrients" (1 p107).

Even among seaweeds, Seagreens® brown wrack varieties are outstanding vegetables, in that they are nutritionally complete - a genuine 'whole food' capable of supporting human life. Several animal species, including Galapagos lizards and Ramsay sheep, have an exclusive diet of seaweed. In our own Lofoten Islands, young wild elk walk miles down the mountains even in summer, to eat the seaweed that grows along the ocean shore.

"A broad range of protein content in addition to a remarkable ability to combine with other vegetables, grains and legumes. Not only do they contribute valuable protein and other nutrients, but their mineralization is superior to that of any other plant or animal food" (1 p107).
 

To understand the importance of ‘ocean nutrition’ it is helpful to understand a little of the origin of life and the part that ocean nutrients played in the evolution of our bodily systems. Even today it is this broad balance of nutrients (still found in this wild seaweed) which enables us to achieve ‘nutritional balance’ and ‘homeostasis’ - balance of the whole system.

These figures are not only useful in explaining the range and amounts of nutrients in seaweed. They also help us to understand our own very earliest relationship with sea water nutrients and the biological mechanisms which animals including human beings, evolved to deal with them. Not surprisingly, there are correlations between the usefulness of nutrients and their abundance in sea water (151).

Arsenic, for example, is essential in low amounts, a relatively non-toxic element although human activity has increased the amount in the modern environment. Animal life in the sea acquired a mechanism through which the more reactive, and thus more toxic form of inorganic arsenic was made into a non-toxic, methylated organic form. This ability was retained by most higher animals including humans which readily excrete methylated arsenic via the kidney (152).

Arsenic is found in higher concentrations than mercury, so early life exposure to mercury was probably limited, and early life forms did not develop good methods to handle the amounts that are now sometimes encountered through human activity. Thus, mercury is a relatively toxic element (151). The good news is that Seagreens® contains many nutrients, particularly iodine and a range of special seaweed polysaccharides, which are very effective binders (chelators) of mercury - and other potentially toxic elements like lead. This enables excessive mercury to be excreted from the body through the bowel (unlike many mercury chelation protocols which take it out through the kidney) and even if the seaweed contains minute traces of mercury from the sea, there will be a net extraction of mercury by ingesting the seaweed.

Not only do we see that we are a product of our own relationship with Nature, but today we also know a lot more about the micronutrients largely ignored in a ‘reductionist’ view of Nature which also ignored the disastrous effect of imbalancing the soil by ‘feeding’ it - and our food - a starvation diet of phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium for half a century.

There is now evidence, for example, that even lead has beneficial, perhaps essential, properties in low amounts (154). Environmental exposure to lead through human activity has resulted in intakes much above any requirement level and in frequent circumstances well above the amount that homeostatic mechanisms developed through evolution, are able to handle. This exposure has come about from the use of dishes and utensils containing lead materials, lead water pipes, lead-containing paints and lead additives to gasoline (151).

Thus it may be appreciated that it was the evolution of biological mechanisms to make use of, or protect against, the elements, rather than the elements themselves, which distinguishes a toxic from a non-toxic element. “Essential” therefore implies the presence of good (evolved) homeostatic mechanisms as a means to prevent toxicity over a wide range of intake, and certain foods like seaweeds, can actually help us in this task.

“Essential elements for humans, beyond those needed to form organic molecules and to perform electrolyte functions, are Calcium, Cobalt, Copper, Iodine, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Molybdenum, Selenium, and Zinc (155). Recently, rather conclusive evidence has come forth to include Boron and Chromium on this list (156). The possibility that other elements are ‘Essential’ remains.

This is supported by the existence of limited circumstantial evidence for the essentiality of Aluminium, Bromine, Cadmium, Flourine, Germanium, Lead, Lithium, Rubidium, and Tin (157). Moreover, evolutionary aspects of some of these elements suggest that they will be established as Essential elements” (151). Seaweeds contain, in varying degrees, all of these original elements and are the most primary and stable form of nutrition for all life.

The significance of the difference between the nutritional profile of the ocean and the nutritional profile of the seaweed is the extent to which the seaweed has 'metabolised' the ocean nutrients and ameliorated the harm which the ocean profile would do to us if taken in its raw state - one of the problems of salt which is crystallised straight out of the sea water (and in inferior qualities the raft of minerals is left behind).

The seaweed, like any other life form which has survived the eons of Earth's chemical evolution, has successfully excluded most of the potentially harmful chemicals or found ways to harmlessly incorporate them. The seaweed has established an entirely different balance of virtually all of these nutrients within its own structure. In this way, in one of its most prolific species - the grass of the oceans, if you like - Nature provides a whole vegetable food not only capable of sustaining almost any animal able to ingest it, but a food in an ideal balance to take in all of these valuable nutrients from a single source.

It is important to understand that in themselves these chemicals may not be harmful, but in their interraction with other chemicals or life forms, they may become harmful. For example "in conditions of iodine deficiency, bromine becomes more toxic" (225). The following paragraphs may help explain why in the seaweed we find a higher ratio of iodine to bromine and chloride than may be the case in the ocean profile.

The point is well illustrated by the balance of halides such as bromine, chorine, and iodine - and is critical in the process of detoxification. Chloride and bromine, for example, compete for reabsorption in the kidneys. "When there is a decreased amount of chloride in the body, less bromine will be excreted from the kidneys, resulting in  elevated bromine levels. Increasing the amount of chloride in the diet will allow the kidneys to release more bromine into the urine for excretion..only with adequate chloride levels, can the body eliminate bromine in any significant amounts" (225).

This illustrates the reason why it is the balance and relationship of nutrients which is critical in the body rather than the individual nutrients themselves. Even medical professionals will say: "You should avoid this or that nutrient" but the body has evolved the most ingenious ways of balancing itself and this is why it is so important to give it natural whole foods which it is able to deal with and metabolise to its best advantage. Denying nutrients, within the whole picture, may do more harm than good. The balance is too delicate for us to begin to try and achieve artificially and this is the danger of  'formulated foods' especially for children.

Bromine has been found in the environment in prescription medicines, bakery products and carbonated drinks, as an antibacterial agent in swimming pools and hot tubs, as a fumigant crop spray and against termites and other pests. Research has shown that a bromine imbalance will eliminate and replace iodide in the thyroid gland (227).

"Bromine will bind in the body wherever iodine is bound. Iodine is an essential element for the production of thyroid hormone. When bromine binds to the thyroid gland, it is not only a toxic element but it can cause an iodine deficiency to occur...iodine allows the body to detoxify itself from bromine, while retaining the iodine...the use of iodine will also cause bromine to be released from other tissues in the body as well as the thyroid" (225).

"Increasing the intake of iodine additionally increases the urinary excretion of other toxic halides (226). But although the use of iodine will displace bromine from its bindingsites, the kidneys will not excrete bromine without adequate amounts ofchloride (225).

The nutritional profile of Seagreens® wrack seaweed is of positive assistance in helping the body to achieve and maintain homeostasis. This is the process, which if continuously challenged by environmental and dietary imbalances, causes significant stress and can lead to chronic fatigue and other maladies. It is not only balancing, but dense. That is it has high nutrient concentrations per gram.

Seagreens® wrack seaweed has more iron than the commonlyknown red seaweed Dulse, which itself has 200 times more iron than beetgreens, the richest land vegetable. It has some 8 times more magnesiumand 100 times more iodine than any land vegetable, and some 14 timesmore calcium than cow’s milk.

A teaspoon of Seagreens® has moreiron than a plate of broccoli and contains special polysaccharideswhich help prevent cancer-causing proteins from attaching to the liningof the colon (84), (see below under helicobacter).

Seagreens®are an excellent natural source of magnesium of interest in cases ofosteoarthritis and of iron for iron deficiency. Experience shows thatin many cases it is not the dietary amount of the nutrient which isimportant, but the fact that it is present in Seagreens® with all theother nutrients necessary for its metabolism and use by the body.Seagreens® are also Nature’s most alkalizing food, over 75 times morethan apples!

 

Position of seaweed in the diet

In terms both of its nutritional composition and its culinary usefulness, seaweed has validity firstly as a daily component, secondly in the diet of every man, woman and child at all ages, and thirdly as a minor component or ingredient.

It is an important component of nutritional balance. “As all in this world forms into opposites, seaweed mirrors land vegetation in a number of ways. The best seaweeds grow in cooler climes; the best land plants in warmer. A balance of nutrients is only obtained from the land in a wide variety of foods; in seaweed, from a single or a very few species. It is not a matter of 'either, or' but of seeking their combination to balance out the whole. This is why in Japan, in one of the world's most traditional and sophisticated diets, a very small amount of seaweed turns up in almost every meal. Once again, our focus might turn to the relationship between things, rather than to the things themselves, to find our own balance” (187).

Although it should be a minor component, it is a minor component of the daily food, and not merely a food ‘supplement’. In the well proven and sophisticated macrobiotic approach to a balanced diet, rooted in Japanese and Chinese culinary traditions, “a small volume of sea vegetables, about 2%, is taken daily, eaten as a condiment, in soup, cooked with grains, beans and vegetables as a seasoning to supply minerals ...(and) as a small side dish about twice a week” (188).

“Western producers of soya would like you to believe that the health of Japanese people depends on their consumption of soya. The truth is very different. Many of the health benefits of Japanese cooking can be attributed to seaweed, which is consumed daily in good amounts. Fresh and dried seaweed is full of nutrients and is extensively used in cooking in Japan and many other cultures of the world” (220).

Seagreens® was conceived in this way not as some kind of superfood, neutraceutical or nutritional supplement, even if it can be used in this way, but as integral in human and animal nutrition just as it is integral in composting and the ecology of the soil. “Seagreens® are ‘foundational foods’ because although the amount included in the daily diet is insufficient to live on by itself, it nevertheless ensures that small amounts of all the nutrients are present in the body continuously. This daily balance is exactly what is needed to help the body make best use of other foods eaten during the day - and help protect it from some that shouldn’t be!” (189)

Multiple uses in dietary balance and therapy

Consumers and healthcare practitioners have now been using Seagreens® on a regular basis for more than five years. Their correspondence as well as scientific reports attest to its role in cancer*, cardiovascular* and immune* problems, its natural antibacterial and antibiotic* effects and its efficacy in the treatment of candida*, chronic fatigue syndrome*, helicobacter pylori*, hypothyroid*, irritable bowel*, immune deficiency*, indigestion*, mercury toxicity*, stomach ulcer*, weight problems*. It appears to have a positive re-balancing, cleansing, detoxifying, regulating and strengthening effect on the whole organism (5).

“Its composite ability to address illness states whilst providing a rich nutritional resource and blood/lymphatic fluid detoxification. ... The nutritional profile and purity of Seagreens® is a gift and is exactly what is required” (88).

It has beneficial application in many special diets. For wheat intolerance* Seagreens® vitamin E contains all the isomers otherwise found only in seeds like wheatgerm. Seagreens® Food Capsules have been shown to be of particular value in the removal of heavy metals including mercury from amalgam fillings*, and in Autism Spectrum Disorders*. Benefit has also been found in cases of ME* and Multiple Sclerosis.
Seagreens® may improve respiratory conditions* and dryness of skin*. A substantial body of research has investigated the usefulness of the brown seaweeds in the treatment of cancer*, cardiovascular diseases*, high cholesterol*, and poor thyroid* function. Seagreens® provide a highly nutritious alternative seasoning in the many cases where salt should normally be restricted, including candida*, blood pressure*, heart disease*, ulcers*, kidney damage, poor digestion* and calcium deficiency.

“Modern science confirms seaweed as one of Nature’s all-round pharmaceutical miracles that can accomplish everything from warding off and treating several types of cancer, lowering blood cholesterol and blood pressure, thinning the blood, preventing ulcers, killing bacteria, even curing constipation” (10).

In 2001 Seagreens® were first approved and used by the President of the British Society for Mercury Free Dentistry for pre- and post-operative detoxification* in amalgam extraction. Regular intake may affect alkalinity*, cholesterol levels*, blood pressure*, circulation*, mineral balance, improved digestion and metabolism*, sodium* (an ideal salt replacement also helps reduce water retention), hypo- and hyper-thyroid* and hormonal system, skin/cellulite and weight regulation*. Seagreens® micronised powder provides a remineralizing poultice for the skin* which has been found to be effective for burns, grazes and many skin conditions.

“Seaweeds are highly nutritious, support digestion, help alkalinize the body and aid detox. They generally contain over 70 of the micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) that your body needs for health and are also packed with amino acids (proteins). They are also rich in compounds called polysaccharides which cleanse and heal the intestines and help the breakdown of food. These compounds also bind with heavy metals so they can assist with removal of mercury, lead, cadmium etc from the body. There are many different types of
seaweed and lots of delicious seaweed recipes. If you really don’t like the taste, texture or aroma then try Seagreens seaweed capsules or condiments, made from organic, Arctic bladderwrack, which can be sprinkled on food – delicious!” (107).

The consistently reported benefits of dietary inclusion of Seagreens®, appear to accrue over the long term (6 - 18 months) and are readily maintained thereafter by a very low intake - 1g per day (2 capsules) in adults, more in special cases like pregnancy or less for children. Seagreens® makes a permanent intake safe and gentle. Whilst the brown seaweeds including common kelp (eg. laminaria) are Nature’s finest source of natural iodine, Seagreens® Food Capsules and Food Granules from selected varieties of Arctic Wrack have only half the iodine of kelp so that a daily intake of Seagreens® at 1000mg can be sustained indefinitely without excessive iodine, and used in pregnancy and infant feed. Their iodine content is of special interest to vegans and vegetarians* who may obtain less than half the RDA from their normal diet.

*further comment appears under A - Z below

Alphabetical list of indications of the daily use of Seagreens® in nutritional and therapeutic protocols

Alkalinity

Acidity within the digestive tract and blood result from many causes are healed. Seagreens®’ abundance of alkaline forming minerals and special polysacchardies help balance acidic lifestyles and diets rich in protein, sugar, salt and refined and processed foods.

“Large amounts of minerals (are required) to maintain the blood in an alkaline condition. Seaweeds are best for this” (4).

Wakame (closely related to Seagreens®) is 25.6 times more alkaline-forming than common kelp or laminaria seaweed, 77 times more alkaline-forming than apples, and over 1000 times more alkaline-forming than milk, even though all these are also alkaline forming foods (4).
 

Allergies and intolerances

Seagreens® are a useful source of nutrients in many special diets. Most of the dietary nutrients to be avoided because of allergy, intolerance, health condition or as in vegetarianism, the rejection of certain types of foods, can be obtained from the seaweed without the problems arising from those nutrients’ normal food source. Seagreens® are approved by many food and health societies including the British Vegan Society and the British Coeliac Society.

There are no known allergenic substances in Seagreens® and since their introduction in 1998 not a single case of intolerance or biological rejection has been reported, unlike green ‘superfood’ formulations which often combine vegetables, seeds, fruits, berries, cereals, grasses and sometimes algæ, and may contain one or more ingredients unsuitable in a special diet. Wheat and barley grass, soya, alfalfa and avocado are just a few such ingredients to which intolerance is not uncommon.

Meat and dairy alternatives
The full amino acid content of meat protein, and the entire B vitamin group also obtained from meat or dairy products, are present in Seagreens®, including fully bioavailable B12. The B12 found in wild wrack seaweed is the predominant cobalamide and an absorbable source for mammals (91). This is in contrast to the B12 in the fresh-water algæ spirulina, which is an inactive, unavailable corrinoid or pseudovitamin. Seagreens® are also an ideal vegetable source of iron (575µg per gram), vitamin E with all its isomers, normally found only in seed oils like wheatgerm (230µg/g), calcium (20mg/g), magnesium (7000µg/g), and many other nutrients. But it is likely that the relationship between the nutrients, rather than the amounts which are present, may be of greatest value to the body.

Thyroid and hormonal disorders
The ‘brown’ seaweeds generally are a rich source of iodine, but the endocrine system also needs the simultaneous presence of a comprehensive balance of nutrients for its equilibrium. Seagreens® Food Capsules and Food Granules contain approximately 220µg iodine per 500mg , and Seagreens® special Everyday ‘iodine’ Capsule approximately 350µg per 500mg. In both cases the iodine is naturally ‘colloidal’ and chelated, attached to protein ions. None will interfere with thyroxin or suppressant drugs like Carbimazole or radiotherapy and in both hypo- and hyper- thyroidism, provide a sound nutritional basis for hormone regulation. (See also below under Thyroid).

Salt reduction and replacement
For those seeking to reduce or eliminate dietary salt, Seagreens® Culinary Ingredient, and Salad & Condiment products provide healthy alternatives in which sodium (35mg/g) is balanced by potassium 25mg/g), calcium (20mg/g) magnesium (7mg/g) and all the mineral salts in proportions akin to their ideal ratio in plasma and cells! And that is only half the story: in 1986 scientists found that when stroke-prone rats were overfed salt, only those fed wild wrack seaweed powder avoided strokes - the seaweed proved to be an antidote to excess sodium consumption (27)! In stark contrast, so-called ‘low sodium salts’ like Solo, Lo-Salt, Ruthmol and others have often merely replaced excessive sodium with excessive potassium or other salts. All are highly processed and none are pure whole foods. (See also below under Salt replacement).

Detoxification and weight control
Detoxification with Seagreens® is best understood as a broad and continuous process rather than the often harsh but fashionable regimes advocated by lifestyle and media pundits. The benefits of a ‘clean’ system accrue over six months or longer and appear to deliver their peak at 18 months to two years, when there is no reason why they should not be sustained indefinitely. Similarly, Seagreens® appear to achieve weight regulation rather than merely weight loss, helping the body to return to and maintain its natural homeostasis or equilibrium. (See also below under Detoxification, and Weight regulation).

Pregnancy, lactation and recuperation
Seagreens® Food Capsules and Food Granules are particularly suitable for use during pregnancy, and in recuperation after childbirth and throughout lactation, because their nutritional profile is well balanced across their unique mixture of different seaweed varieties (Fucus, Pelvetia, and Ascophyllum). The Food Capsules became a staple for the author of The Organic Baby Book. Her first child - still flourishing - received the contents of a single capsule in infant feed from about 6 months (106)! Also prior to conception, parents-to-be might have something to gain, since although unflattering the comparison may be, well documented improvements in milk quality and yield and the fertility of livestock have long been known to farmers! (See also below under Pregnancy).

Alzheimer’s, dementia and memory loss

(see also below under Degenerative diseases)

In Alzheimer’s research there is some indication that the effect of antioxidants “may reduce the amyloid plaque deposition in the neuronal cells” (128). Seagreens® are an ideal whole food source of all the antioxidant nutrients and can be readily included in a liquid or solid diet at significant levels of daily intake for very long periods.

Seagreens® is also a natural source of vitamin B3 (nicotinamide) found in meat, fish beans, cereals and potatoes which may help protect the brain and boost memory in healthy people. US research has shown the vitamin reduces the level of a protein (phosphorylated tau) known to be involved in abnormal ‘deposits’ in brain cells called ‘tangles’ which contribute to brain conditions associated with Alzheimer’s (202). NB. The Alzheimer’s Research Trust issued a warning that people should not use formulated B3 supplements until human research has been completed.

Vitamin B12 deficiency has also been linked to dementia and declining memory in old age, according to an Oxford, England study in 2008 (213). Brain shrinkage was greatest among adults with the lowest levels of B12 aged between 61 and 87, even though above the level defined as a vitamin deficiency. B12 is present is Seagreens® in a natural food form that is bioavailable to humans (91, and for details see below under Vegan and vegetarian diets).

High doses of formulated multivitamin and mineral supplements are not natural foods and may cause nutritional imbalances especially in the elderly.

Amalgam fillings

(see below under Detoxification, and Mercury toxicity).

Dr. J. G. Levenson, founder of the British Society for Mercury Free Dentistry first adopted Seagreens® Food Capsules for post-operative detoxification in amalgam extraction. The product continues in successful use by a number of eminent practitioners in this field (95).

Antibacterial, antibiotic and antiviral

(see also below under Candida, Helicobacter pylori/ulcer, Immune deficiency)

Antibacterial
Antibacterial agents present in Wrack seaweed have been shown in clinical research to make it effective against common food poisoning bacteria including the fungus Candida albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, and E. coli and a bacterium associated with pneumonia (109).

Lectin extracted from Fucus seaweed aglutinates Candida guilliermondiii and Candida krusei (138). Japanese scientists isolated an anti-ulcer substance in seaweed which has antimicrobial activity against a long list of human disease-causing bacteria including E.coli, Pseudomonas æruginosa, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Aspergillus, Fusarium and Shigella (10). The fucose component of seaweed is known to act on Helicobacter pylori “much as dust would on a piece of adhesive tape: it clogs the suction cups on the bacteria, preventing it from attaching to the stomach” (3, p58, 136).

In vitro and animal studies have demonstrated the efficacy of a fucoidan extract from Cladosiphon seaweed (known in Japan as Okinawan Mozuku) against Helicobacter pylori, further supported by subsequent human trials in a clinical setting, where similar results were observed against gastric ulcer and non-ulcer dyspepsia (166).

Seagreens® wild wrack seaweeds, all members of the order Fucaceae, or Fucus, are rich in polysaccharides including fucose especially Seagreens® Food Capsules and Food Granules which can be used at high levels of daily intake. The seaweed polysaccharide fucoidan has been shown to inhibit the growth of a number of gram negative and gram positve organisms (139).

Antibiotic
Laboratory research shows wild wrack seaweed extract to be as effective as antibiotic drugs against common food poisoning bacteria including Staphylococcus aureus, Treptococcus pyogenes, and E. coli, the fungus Candia albicans, and a bacterium associated with pneumonia (19). Antibiotic activity of extracts of brown, green and red seaweeds may be facts in the importance of seaweed to faecal flora (178).

Antiviral
It appears that most if not all seaweed species contain antiviral sulphated polysaccharides. Research has shown a number of these including carageenans, fuciodans and sulphated thamnogalactans, to have substantial antiviral activity against enveloped viruses such as herpes and HIV.

These compounds (the seaweed polysaccharides) block the entrance of viruses into cells, although other algal fractions also have virucidal and enzyme inhibitory activities, or can inhibit syncytium formation (167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172). A useful inhibitory effect against AIDS virus infection from the special polysaccharides in wrack seaweed was proposed in the early 1990s (63), since they make up approximately half of total carbohydrate 700mg/g (see Table 2 below for a comprehensive nutritional profile). In 2004, a research paper attributed one of the unifying characteristics in those countries with unusually low rates of HIV to the regular consumption of seaweed (164).

Fucoidan, a seaweed polysaccharide, has been shown to inhibit the growth of a variety of viruses (143). In cancer studies, fucoidan induced apoptosis (cell replication) of human T-cell leukaemia virus (HTLV) type 1-infected T-cell lines and primary adult T-cell leukaemia cells (see also below under Cancer) (179). Carrageenan has been studied as a potential vaginal microbiocide (173).

The complex sulphated polysaccharides in Seagreens® stimulate lymphocyte and interferon production and other anti-tumour activity; also the immune enhancing T- and B-cells, inhibiting viral pathogenesis. Recent research (2000), using a red algæ Dumontiaceæ has shown that these polysaccharides support the body’s specific immune response to Herpes Simplex and Herpes Zoster viruses, helping to reduce or prevent the occurrence and severity of outbreaks. There was anecdotal evidence of marked improvement in cases of Epstein Barr and Candida. Two US patents were filed for clinical efficacy in the treatment of Herpes I & II.

Autistic spectrum disorders

(see elsewhere in Seagreens Healthcare Summary under Detoxification, Hypothyroid, Immune deficiency, and Mercury toxicity).

Seagreens® may be useful in connection with the treatment of a number of common problems in autism spectrum disorders, specifically:

• the inability to deal with heavy metals (see Healthcare Summary under Detoxification);
• compromised immunity (see Healthcare Summary under Immune deficiency);
• thyroid disorders (see Healthcare Summary under Hypothyroid).

Seagreens® comprehensive balance of nutrients includes a unique range of polysaccharides, stable protein-bound iodine, the full range of amino acids including cysteine necessary for the production of metallothionines (MTs), and all the minerals and trace elements including selenium and zinc. Articles relating to the possible relevance of these features can be found in back issues nos. 10 and 21 of The Autism File (80). Seagreens® bind and remove or neutralize heavy metals including mercury, lead, cadmium, and radionucleids. The body’s detoxification system:

“in order to function well, has to have a constant supply of certain nutrients: zinc, magnesium, selenium, molybdenum and other minerals and trace elements, hundreds of enzymes, many amino-acids and essential fats - all the substances which our autistic children are deficient in” (85).

Seagreens® may be able to assist in regulating the metabolism and thyroid and provide a consistent nutritional foundation for the restoration of homeostasis. Whilst the path of autism can vary widely in different individuals, presenting a disparate range of symptoms (1), Seagreens® may prove helpful where there is evidence of the following (81):

• Inability to bind and remove heavy metals
• Deficient amino acids
• Mineral imbalance
• Thyroid disorders, hypothyroid
• Dysfunctional digestion, dysbiosis, acidosis
• Compromised immunity, candida
• Disturbed fatty acid metabolism, electrolyte imbalance
• Dry skin, listless hair, poor circulation
• High levels of free radicals

A previously unreleased confidential report from the US Centers for Disease Control reports that an exposure to more than 62.5 micrograms of mercury within the first three months of life more than doubles a child’s risk of developing autism. The US legal firm Waters & Kraus, representing many families in a class action, have indicated that in many of the cases the firm evaluated, the affected child had received more than 62.5 micrograms of mercury through paediatric vaccines in the first three months of life.(86).

In 2000, Sallie Bernard and colleagues linked the mercury based preservative thimerosal (ethyl mercuri thiosalicylic acid) not only to autism but to related syndromes such as ADHD (89). Thimerosal is used widely as a preservative in vaccines, antitoxins, tuberculin tests and desensitisation solutions. It may also be found in soap-free cleansers, nose, eye, and ear drops, eye ointments, topical medications, antiseptic sprays, cosmetics (including makeup removers, eye moisturisers, and mascaras) and cleaning fluids for contact lenses. UK regulators have recommended phasing out its use in vaccines (87).

Clinical nutritionist Jonathan Tommey identifies 7 key areas where “Seagreens® may prove beneficial to many autistics” focussing on Seagreens® ability to:

• Bind heavy metals
• Increase amino acids for the anabolism of many enzymes, hormones and cellular structures
• Regulate mineral imbalances
• Provide thyroid function with tyrosine and its active co-factor in thyroxin, iodine (he points out studies have found autistics to be hypothyroid; shown by iodine tincture being rapidly absorbed)
• Balance acidosis from autistic diets rich in acid forming foods, supporting beneficial gut bacteria
• Support the lymphatic system vital to remove toxins and infectious pathogens (he cites frequent infections and inflammation of the glands being helped by Seagreens®)
• Rejuvenate gastro-intestinal tract and lungs with significant input of the seaweed polysaccharides (108).
• These represent a number of useful nutritional interventions more fully covered in a 2007 seminar reported by Jonathan Tommey in The Autism File (215).

Iodine, of which Seagreens® is an ideal natural source, has been noted by researchers as an important nutrient in connection with the incidence ADHD and ADD children of iodine-deficient mothers in Western industrialised nations (124, 125). Seagreens® are approved by The Autism Trust.

PRODUCTS FOR DAILY DIETARY USE

For children and adults over 4 years of age the recommended daily intake of Seagreens is 1 to 2 grams - which equates to 2 to 4 Seagreens Food Capsules or in the non-encapsulated granulated form as Seagreens Food Granules. If for use in drinks and smoothies the contents of the Food Capsules is soluble if stirred in, or less expensively try Seagreens Microgranules available at present by mail order only. For children under 4, half the daily intake is adviseable.

There are a number of creative ways you can use Seagreens products, winter and summer, providing interest, excitement and different tastes. The different seaweed species in these products have different tastes and textures and slightly different nutritional profiles.

For example try the highly nutritious Summer Tonic devised by Dr. Jane Jamieson using Seagreens Salad & Condiment product. Try soaking the Salad & Condiment in cold water for at least 6 minutes and adding to salads or vegetables.

Seagreens Culinary Ingredient can be sprinkled on or into almost any kind of food, easily hidden in soups, stir fries or pizzas with a mild, barely noticeable flavour unless over-used.

Even more palatable and a healthy option to replace normal salt at the table is The Mineral Salt, Seagreens latest award-winning product - the first wholefood salt alternative and widely popular with young and old alike!

All these products are available from your nearest health food store in a number of countries or by mail order worldwide.

From around age 10, through adulthood and in the elderly, and wherever Seagreens are a nutritional adjunct to therapy, and in heavy metals detoxification, a daily intake of 3 grams or more should be considered in consultation with your clinical or nutritional therapist. As a guide, 2 Food Capsules is 1 gram; a level teaspoon is about 3 grams.

For patients of Jonathan Tommey and The Autism Clinic not far from central London, which also provides an international mail order service, Seagreens products are available at the clinic or online.

 

Blood pressure

(see also below under Cardiovascular, Cholesterol, and Salt Replacement)

Against nearly 40% sodium in salt, there is only 3.5% sodium in Seagreens® together with all the other minerals, trace elements and compounds naturally chelated and in a balance which is ideal for the human body (potassium 2.5%, Magnesium 0.7%, Calcium 2%, etc).

Seagreens® Culinary Ingredient (pure seaweed granules) can replace salt in most recipes, balancing blood and cells, aiding full metabolism, helping to regulate and ‘clean’ the internal environment. This product has been the subject of scientific research at the Sheffield Centre for Food Innovation (Sheffield Hallam University, England) since 2007, which has demonstrated that Seagreens can replace the ubiquitous sodium chloride (salt) in manufactured foods.

In 2011 Seagreens launched a consumer product The Mineral Salt, for domestic use at the table and in cooking and baking. It is 50% Seagreens Hebridean organic seaweed from the Scottish Outer Hebridean islands, 50% Cornish unrefined sea salt from the most sustainable new production facility in the world, off the remote south west coast of Britain

A significant Japanese study published in Nutrition Journal in 2011 shows the benefit of seaweed in blood pressure. Its forward thinking conclusion is that seaweed as a health promoting ingredient in children's foods may reduce hypertension in the adult population.

Seagreens® also provides a well-balanced supply of naturally chelated iron (575µg/g) valuable in the treatment of low blood pressure, and the most important anion magnesium whose lack is proven causal in heart and circulation diseases. Japanese research in the 1980s used wrack seaweed as a hypotensive drink to significantly reduce blood pressure with no side effects (26), and isolated hypotensive chemicals including histamine from the seaweed.

Wrack seaweed has also been shown to lower high blood sugar, due to its natural combination of nutrients especially chromium which is active in blood sugar control and iodine which aids metabolism. Japanese scientists found a substance in brown seaweed which when tested in rats:

“was twice as powerful as heparin in antithrombin (clot-dissolving) activity” (10).

Hypotensive chemicals including histamine, which reduce blood pressure, have been isolated from wrack seaweed (10). Research especially at Lund University in Sweden confirms the beneficial effect of Omega-3 on blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels (25).

In the early 1990s Russian researchers claimed to have achieved the following results by feeding patients up to 10g per day of polysaccharides in the form of wrack seaweed dried powder for 3 months: cholesterol reduced by 26.5%; B-lipoproteins reduced by 25.1%; triglycerides reduced by 32.1%, No negative reactions were found in the kidneys, liver or other organs. No side effects were found (60).

“Since most instances of high blood pressure not only involve arterial problems but are also closely related to excesses of the liver, very small amounts of whole salt - ideally in the form of seaweed - can help detoxify the liver, once poor quality and fatty foods are eliminated from the diet and the blood pressure is out of the danger zone” (1 pp157, 162, 163).
 

Blood types

(see also under Helicobacter pylori/ulcers, below)

The Wrack seaweeds are excellent nutrients especially for Type O blood types. Dr P J D’Adamo (3) highlights the importance of the polysaccharide fucose, the basic building sugar of the O blood antigen which he notes as protecting the intestinal lining. The alkalizing effect of wrack seaweed also helps counter the hyperacidity of the Type O digestive tract, reducing the potential for ulcers.

Seagreens® is also a good source of vitamin K an important blood-clotting factor. Whilst conventional iodine supplements are not recomended, the iodine content in wrack seaweed is an ideal source to feed unstable thyroid metabolisms which in Type O have a tendency to cause weight gain, fluid retention and fatigue.

This is also a valuable source of the mineral manganese because Type Os would otherwise have to obtain these from whole grains and legumes which they have difficulty in digesting and are commonly intolerant to. Among all the vegetables for Type Os wrack seaweed is listed as ‘highly beneficial’.

Seafood generally, the second most concentrated animal protein, is best suited for Type Os of Asian and Caucasian Asian (Eurasian) descent. Blue-green algæ should be avoided. D’Adamo lists seaweed among only 6 recommended supplements in the blood type O diet and Seagreens® contains all the other 5 with the exception of licorice which can be purchased as a desiccated natural root for making delicious tea. Seagreens® Culinary Ingredient (Ascophyllum wrack) can also be infused in water overnight and drained off as tea, alone or as an ingredient.

Of the various species of Wrack, 3 are contained in Seagreens® Food Capsules including Fucus referred to by Dr P. D’Adamo as ‘bladderwrack’. He apparently singles out Fucus because of the research carried out using it, but all three Seagreens® sdpecies have an outstanding polysaccharide content so are theorewtically equally useful sources for Blood Type Os.

Burns

(see also under Skin below)

Seagreens® has been used to remarkable effect on burned and grazed skin and on skin where the outer layer has been partially or wholly removed (for example by burning or steaming).

Seagreens® Microgranules can be prepared by mixing with a warm pure distilled or mineral water in the manner of a poultice or facepack until a suitably moist, warm paste can be applied - preferably at body temperature - to cover the affected area without dripping off, even where the skin is grazed or broken.

It may be applied where there is severe inflammation which will normally calm down rapidly. It is preferable then to dress the area with an even moister compress and cover, so that the moisture will be retained in the seaweed, and leave for several hours or if possible overnight.

The Microgranules are air dried homogeneous micronized particles of Seagreens® single wild Arctic wrack called Ascophyllum nodosum. This has an outstanding balance of nutrients which include all the minerals and trace elements, growth hormones and numerous betaines. Both the seaweed and its extracts are widely used in wound dressings and thalassotherapy (eg. seaweed body wraps). As a food ingredient, it has long been known to improve the bloom of horses, dogs and mink, not to mention human hair, skin and nails.

Cancer

(see also below under Cholesterol, Detoxification, Iodine and iodine deficiency, Immune system and deficiency, and Salt replacement)

Approximately 1/3rd of the US population will eventually contract a form of cancer. Research at Harvard School of Public Health concluded: “seaweed has shown consistent anti-tumour activity. In extrapolating these results to the Japanese population, seaweed may be an important factor in explaining the low rates of certain cancers in Japan” (16).

Seagreens® offers a useful nutritional input in cancer prevention, management and recuperation. Several varieties of kombu (like Seagreens® also a member of the phæophyta or brown seaweed family) are a traditional decoction for cancer in Japan, where scientists have been able to verify its effective treatment of tumours in the laboratory with: “complete regression in more than half the treated group” (17).

The principal cancer-fighting substances are the special polysaccharides in the brown seaweeds, in Seagreens® typically as much or more than 50% of total carbohydrate which itself accounts for more than half the composition of nutrients, especially fucose and fucoidan which has been shown to cause the destruction as well as the inhibition of cancer cells by preventing adhesion to healthy cells and by interruption of the DNA within the cancer cells (29, 30, 37). The polysaccharides are now known to have anti-cancer, anti-coagulant, anti-thrombotic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-viral properties. A substantial body of literature covers this subject with special reference to brain tumour (37), breast cancer (31, 32), intestinal cancer (39), leukemia (36, 38), lung cancer (29, 33, 34, 35, 36), throat cancer (43), and research into the mode of action (40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52). Korean research also highlighted the role of sulphated fucoidan in the polysaccharides (92).

“Japanese scientists have run more than 500 clinical trials to discover whether there are elements in seaweed which could suppress the growth of tumour cells. Researchers at the Japanese biomedical group Takara Shuzo discovered the polysaccharide known as U-fucoidan which literally causes cancer cells to self-destruct. Their research showed that when a small amount of this was added to a culture of colon cancer cells half of them died within 24 hours and trhe rest were completely eliminated after 72 hours” (132).

The incidence of breast cancer is rising worldwide, particularly in women over 50. It increased by 30-40% between 1973 and 1997 (221). Although it has dropped about 10% consistent with the reduced use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), the incidence of breast cancer in the US remains the highest in the world, while Japan until recently had the lowest. Almost 15% of American women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime. Japanese seaweed consumption was 4.5g per day when last measured in 1964, which gives an average population intake of iodine of 13.8mg of iodine (now 12g per day against a US daily intake of 240µg or 50 times less) (192). Interestingly, some of the most dramatic results achieved with Seagreens® reported by practitioners and patients between 1998 and 2008 were when using between 6 and 12 Food Capsules or 3 - 6 grams of Food Granules per day which corresponds to the traditional average daily intake in Japan.

Seaweed appears to provide an effective defence against excessive salt (in particular sodium chloride). A 2003 study in Japan which followed the dietary habits of 40,000 men and women found that the risk of stomach cancer in men with a low-salt intake of 4g to 6g daily was 1 in 1,000 per year, but double in men consuming 12g to 15g per day. The risk for women on a low-salt diet was 1 in 2,000 per year but on a high level diet increased to 1 in 1,300 (93). Researchers discovered that when stroke-prone rats were overfed salt, only those also fed seaweed powder did not have strokes; indicating that the seaweed was a protective antidote to the excess sodium consumption (27).

Seagreens® are highly alkalising - some 75 times moreso than apples - and an alkaline system has a greater defence against cancer. ‘A Cancer Therapy’ by Max Gerson M.D. makes useful reference to the subject.

In the nutritional response to chemo- and radiotherapy, the special seaweed polysaccharides in Seagreens® come to prominence. They have been shown to reduce absorption of strontium, barium, tin, cadmium, manganese, zinc, and mercury’ (114). In the 1960s Japanese scientists showed that radioactive strontium in the gut is converted to an insoluble salt which is excreted. Nature published a report showing that wrack seaweed inhibits the body’s absorption of radioactive strontium and cadmium by up to 7/8ths the dose received. It also removed Strontium 90 already absorbed through the gut wall and deposited in body tissues and bone.

In radiotherapy, offered to approximately 50% of cancer patients often in conjunction with surgery and/or chemotherapy, normal cells as well as cancer cells will be attacked, for example hair cells, stomach lining cells, blood cells, as well as healthy tissue adjacent to the site of the tumour. Intra operative radiation therapy (IORT) in which a source of radiation is implanted directly into the body close to the tumour site, also damages other cells, however well targetted.

Seagreens® is an ideal nutritional foundation for all cancer therapies. At a high daily intake prior to and throughout treatment as well as in recuperation, the Food Capsules and Food Granules may give significant support to immunity and recovery, noted by practitioners and consumers alike.

Seagreens® also provide the entire range of antioxidants in an easily assimilable, natural form and balance. This is in stark contrast to the case of high-strength formulated anioxidant and vitamin supplements which are the subject of controversy, although there is no hard evidence that they are causative in cancer, including prostate cancer as has been claimed (129).

Seagreens® have already been included in the daily diet in food and drink for prolonged periods up to 6 months at strengths of up to 7 grams of the Food Granules (or 14 Food Capsules) per day with no side effects and with marked improvements in the general health of patients. Seagreens® have a particular contribution to make in nutritional protocols in conjunction with alternative or complementary cancer management and in the prevention of cancer, not least because a natural dietary solution can be maintained over a lengthy period.

In vitro research has shown that fucoidan in the polysaccharides of Wrack seaweed is a potent inhibitor of tumour cell invasion, acting to blocvk tmour cell adhesion (144).

Candida

(see above under Antibacterial, antibiotic, and antibacterial, also below under Immune deficiency)

Candida albicans is a parasitic yeast present in everyone’s digestive tract. Normally it is dormant and harmless, but if the gut flora (consisting of at least 2,000 or so bacteria species covering 300 square metres of mucosal epithelium) gets out of balance, due for example to taking antibiotics, stress, or poor diet, the yeast is able to multiply, eventually causing symptoms which may range from peristent thrush and bloating to sugar cravings and hyperactivity.

Antibacterial agents present in Wrack seaweed have been shown in clinical research to make it it effective against common food poisoning bacteria including the fungus Candida albicans; Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, and E. coli; and a bacterium associated with pneumonia (109). Lectin extracted from Fucus seaweed agglutinates Candida guilliermondiii and C. krusei (138).

The complex sulphated polysaccharides in Seagreens® stimulate lymphocyte and interferon production and other anti-tumour activity; also the immune enhancing T- and B-cells, inhibiting viral pathogenesis. Recent research (2000), using a red algæ Dumontiaceæ has shown that these polysaccharides support the body’s specific immune response to Herpes Simplex and Herpes Zoster viruses, helping to reduce or prevent the occurrence and severity of outbreaks. There was anecdotal evidence of marked improvement in cases of Epstein Barr and Candida.

Two US patents were filed for clinical efficacy in the treatment of Herpes I & II. A useful inhibitory effect against AIDS virus infection can be expected from the special polysaccharides in wrack seaweed (63), which make up approximately half of total carbohydrate 600mg/g (see Table 2 below for a comprehensive nutritional profile).

“Seaweeds have exceptional value in the treatment of candida overgrowth. They contain selenium and (all the) other minerals necessary for rebuilding immunity; furthermore the rich iodine content is used by enzymes in the body to produce iodine-charged free radicals which deactivate yeasts.

Before the advent of anti-fungal drugs, iodine was the standard medical treatment for yeasts. When candidiasis is complicated with tumours or cancers, then seaweed is of additional benefit. Salt should normally be restricted during candida overgrowth” (1 p36).

Its usefulness in mineral provision and salt replacement is well documented.

Cardiovascular

(see also above under Blood pressure and below under Circulation, Cholesterol, and Diabetes)

The polysaccharides in brown seaweed have been shown to offer several useful mechanisms in addressing coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disorders, atherosclerosis, as well as cancerogenesis and cancer metastasis (see above under Cancer): the inhibition of smooth muscle cell proliferation (monoclonal hyperplasia) which is an important step in atherogenesis (68, 69, 72); the reduction of high blood sugar and triglyceride levels, and activation of enzymes involved in the beta-oxidatuion of fatty acids which can be useful in the prevention and treatment of hyperlipidemia (71); an inhibitory effect on the generation of thrombin (61); the hypertensive effect of its special range of polysaccharides including laminin; hypotensive effects may be due to laminine doxalate (114).

In hypertensive patients supplemented with iodine to the level of ‘whole body sufficiency’, normalization of blood pressure without medications was achieved in small scale tests measuring various effects of significant iodine supplementation, and similar observations were reported by other physicians using the same programme. The best results were achieved when orthoiodosupplementation was combined with a complete nutritional programme emphasising magnesium instead of calcium, with no significant side effects (118, 122 p60).

The polysaccharides have been shown to ‘mimic’ heparin, exhibiting the same anticoagulant activity (65, 66, 67) and a higher antiproliferative activity (70). Its anticoagulant activity chiefly relates to the breakdown of fats in the blood, but Seagreens® should not be considered an alternative to heparin (a short term remedial drug) or warfarin (a long term maintenance drug) although it is entirely compatible with these and may assist their effectiveness. There are no contra-indications for using Seagreens® as there are, for example, with aspirin in conjunction with these drugs.

Other research also indicates that the fucoidan fraction in Wrack seaweed possesses anticoagulant activity (145) and fibrinolytic properties (146).

It was discovered that when stroke-prone rats were overfed salt, only those also fed seaweed powder did not have strokes; the seaweed was an antidote to excess sodium consumption (27). Several components of brown seaweeds have been shown to have cardiotonic value. Fatty acids found in kelp stimulated heart muscle, while a histamine compound accelerated contractions of the atrium (histamine and iodine content of nekombu (a Japanese wrack) were 501mg/kg and 3200mg.kg respectively, indicating that 36% of the total iodine was in the salt form of histamine). Researchers found an extract from Undaria pinnatifida seaweed increased the contractile force of the atria.

Much of the research highlights the involvement of the polysaccharide fucoidan which may comprise 4% of brown seaweed polysaccharides (62, 72). It is believed in some quarters that the high intake of brown seaweed in the Japanese diet may be a factor in their relatively low incidence of heart disease and cancer death, although many other dietary norms pertain, absent in the West.

The largest scientific study of its kind, reported in February 2006, found that “People who eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day are 26% less likely to suffer a stroke than those who only eat 3” (100).

Iodine, of which Seagreens® is an ideal natural source, may also play a significant role in cardiac function. It has been shown that optimal ‘whole body’ levels of inorganic, non-radioactive iodine results in “optimal cardiac functions” (120).

Cholesterol

(see also above under Blood pressure and Cardiovascular diseases)

Japanese researchers showed wakame to suppress the re-absorption of cholesterol in the liver and intestine, and hijiki (both closely related to Seagreens®) to lower serum cholesterol and improve fat metabolism (18). Research especially at Lund University in Sweden confirms the beneficial effect of Omega-3 on blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels (25).

A study completed in 2005 at Karolinska University Hospital and Linköping University, Sweden suggests that elevated concentrations of serum cholesterol is a risk factor for testicular cancer. In deaths among 44,864 men tracked from 1965 there was a positive correlation between serum cholesterol concentration and the incidence of testicular cancer (94).

Seagreens® may help to reduce cholesterol possibly due to the neutralizing action of their unique range of polysaccharides and the regulating effect of its comprehensive mineral content on blood and plasma. It does not reduce the cholesterol we need, whether in the cardiovascular system or brain.

“Thanks to the promoters of the diet-heart hypothesis, everybody ‘knows’ that cholesterol is evil and has to be fought at every turn. If you believe the popular media you would think that there is simply no level of cholesterol low enough. The truth is that we humans cannot live without cholesterol” (220).

The primary seaweed polysaccharide is alginic acid, a linear polymer of L-guluronic and D-mannuronic acid which may inhibit cholesterol absorption. A purified carbohydrate product extracted from various brown seaweeds, called algin or sodium alginate, is used widely in industrial processing as a binding agent. Orally, algin is used to lower serum cholesterol levels (114).

Many Japanese reports show that ‘brown algal-suflated polysaccharides’ have anticoagulant activity similar to heparin, a popular pharmaceutical anticoagulant. One assumption is that these (polysaccharides) clear the blood of fatty substances the same way heparin does. If you inject heparin after a fatty meal, it accelerates the disappearance of visible fats, reducing bad LDL cholesterol and raising good HDL.

Circulation

(see also below under Weight regulation)

Subjects in uncontrolled weight regulation trials at the University of Pavia, Italy (1999) increased blood flow to the skin by as much as 45%, improved metabolism and blood mineralisation possibly leading to better circulation.

Degenerative diseases

(See also above under Alzheimer’s)

Seagreens® are an ideal nutritional foundation in the management of all degenerative diseases because of the breadth and balance and the bioavailability of their nutrients. This is of particular use in cases of impaired mastication and digestion and the restricted uptake of nutrients in the sick and elderly.

Dementia

(see above under Alzheimer’s and dementia)

Dental nutrition

(see also below under Detoxification, and Oral hygiene)

Seagreens® began co-operation with the Brompton Dental Clinic and in particular, Dr J. G. Levenson, in 1999. Dr Levenson was the Founder and past President of the British Society for Mercury-Free Dentistry; Dental Adviser & Executive Committee Member, Environmental Medicine Foundation.

Seagreens® Food Capsules (and later Food Granules) were found to achieve excellent results in the pre- and post-operative detoxification of heavy metals including dental mercury from amalgam and in root canal work involving toxicity. The polysaccharides are also known to be effective against nickel, cadmium, lead, strontium and other environmental pollutans, and in oral hygiene.

Patents were taken out in the US Patent Office in 1988 and 1989 (11) for the use of alginate (from seaweed polysaccharides) to deter and remove dental plaque.

Several toothpastes contain Ascophyllum or Carragheen seaweeds for this reason. A suphated polysaccharide called funoran, isolated from Gloiopeltis furcate seaweed, was found to effectively inhibit the adherence of dental plaque (165). Seagreens® Food Granules, Culinary Ingredient, and Salad & Condiment products are all chewed in the mouth, have a significant component of the polysacchardides, natural antibacterial properties and assist the acid-alkaline balance. Especially the Salad & Table Condiment, like some of the dried farmed Japanese seaweeds available in bags from companies like Clearspring (www.clearspring.co.uk), may be chewed in the mouth straight from the pack and are good for oral hygiene.

In Victorian times, children in coastal areas chewed wild Wrack seaweed like sweets, which must have done wonders for their teeth and gums!

Depression

Professor Jane Plant, professor of environmental geochemistry at Imperial College, London is chief ‘toxic chemicals’ adviser to the British Government, and a trustee of Prince Charles’s Foundation for Integrated Medicine, with Janet Stephenson, an NHS psychologist, advocate a “radical overhaul” of the way the NHS treats people with some form of mood disorder, challenging many conventions of mental health treatment.

“Rather than just being prescribed a diet of pills such as Prozac, get a taste for seaweed and sushi, treat yourself to a moothie, and send fewer text messages”, they say (193).

Detoxification

(see also below under Diabetes, Obesity, Skin, and Weight regulation)

Seagreens® are effective in detoxification through 4 principal modes of action namely:

1. Cleansing of the digestive tract, blood, lymph, kidneys and improved metabolism of food (by a unique range of polysaccharides and pigments including chlorophyll, all the antioxidant vitamins and minerals);
2. Removal of toxic and heavy metals and radiation (by special polysaccharides, the complete range of amino acids and minerals);
3. Improving the alkaline-acid balance and the full metabolism of carbohydrates, proteins and fats, helping protect against acidosis - the most alkaline forming of all natural foods, over 75 times moreso than apples - (by the special polysaccharides and naturally chelated minerals, trace elements and compounds);
4. Providing the richest source of natural, stable, fully ‘chelated’ iodine (bound to protein ions) with all the micro-nutrients needed for its metabolism, like selenium. An essential food for the thyroid and hormonal system which in its turn regulates almost every bodily function.

Seagreens® arctic wild wrack seaweeds contain all the antioxidants and important ‘detoxification’ nutrients like zinc, magnesium, selenium, molybdenum as well as all the other minerals and trace elements, enzymes, amino-acids and importan compound nutrients. Dr Robert Gray, the colon cleansing specialist, regards wild wrack as an excellent mucotropic herb (anti-mucous) to cleanse the lymphatic system, and to:

“loosen, soften or dissolve hardened, stagnant or impacted mucoid in the body”... "It has been shown that a diet consisting solely of generous quantities of every known nutrient cannot maintain health. This is because whole foods contain many valuable nutrients not yet isolated or discovered by laboratory science. By taking supplements, we can only get the advantage of a fraction of what the body needs to maintain health" (113).

Heavy Metals
Patients should understand that the prescence of arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury and other potentially toxic metals are widespread in the environment and that tap water, air pollution, fish, processed foods, dental fillings, old paint, tobacco smpoke, medications, pesticides, cosmetics and toiletries are only some of their most common sources (194).

Seagreens® are uniquely certified free of ocean-borne contaminants (eg. aromatic hydrocarbons, toxic metals (eg. mercury) and microbial pathogens (eg. salmonella).

Heavy metal toxicity may impair mental and central nervous system function and energy levels, and damage vital organs. Long term exposure may lead to physical, muscular and neurological degeneration which can mimic Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis (195).

Iodine of which Seagreens® is an ideal natural source, at 390µg per gram in the Food Capsules and Food Granules used in mercury detoxification protocols, and at 700µg per gram in Seagreens® Iodine+ Capsules, also has an important role, observed in iodine supplementation research. “The results obtained... revealed that in some subjects, the urine levels of mercury, lead, and cadmium increased by several times after just one day of supplementation. For aluminium, this increased excretion was not observed usually until after one month or more on the iodine supplementation.” Furthermore, this author’s research in orthoiodosupplementation achieved “increased urinary excretion of the goitrogens flouride and bromide” (122, 123).

The polysaccharides in Seagreens® including mannuronic acid, laminarin and fucoidin, are the subject of continuing research for anticancer and antitumour compounds. They have been shown to bind and remove barium, cadmium, lead and mercury (131, 21) and...reduce absorption of strontium, barium, tin, cadmium, manganese, zinc, and mercury (114).

Radiation Sickness
There is a substantial and consistent body of international research, particularly Russian, on the stable curative effects of wild Wrack seaweed extracts in radiation sickness. Seagreens® was included in the diet of child victims of the Chernobyl disaster in 2003.

In the 1960s Japanese scientists showed that radioactive strontium in the gut is converted to an insoluble salt which is excreted. Nature published a report showing that wrack seaweed inhibits the body’s absorption of radioactive strontium and cadmium by up to 7/8ths the dose received. It also removed Strontium 90 already absorbed through the gut wall and deposited in body tissues and bone. Other papers on this research (20, 22, 23).

Dental Amalgam Mercury
Following use at the Brompton Health & Dental Clinic in London throughout 2001, Seagreens® Food Capsules were approved by the President of the British Society for Mercury-Free Dentistry, the late Dr J. G. Levenson (28) and may be dispensed by member clinics and nutritional therapists for post-operative detoxification in amalgam extraction and for general purposes of detoxification. Trials have yet to be carried out but empirical evidence is good after more than five years in dental nutrition (95).

Dr Levenson’s protocol: 3 capsules daily (1 with each meal) commencing 5 days before the first treatment, up to 6 capsules on the day/s of treatment and for at least 8 weeks following the completion of treatment, dropping to 3 - 4 capsules daily (1 - 2 morning and 1 - 2 evening) and finally to the normal daily intake of 2 capsules daily over at least the next 12 - 24 months. Seagreens® is enitrely compatible with additional complementary herbs, drugs or supplements which may be used, particularly during the month surrounding the treatment/s, according to patient circumstances and test results.

“Alginate binds to all heavy metals including lead, mercury, cadmium, cobalt, copper and radium and should be consumed over at least a 4 month period to expedite removal of toxic substances stored in the body” - Dr L. Gordin, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Mercury remains the largest ingredient in amalgam dental fillings - at around 500mg per filling, as much as in a thermometer: “...a colossal amount of mercury in scientific terms...a teenager with 6 amlgam fillings has 6 mercury thermometers in her mouth” (79).

As long ago as 1996 the Canadian government recommended that children and pregnant women should not be given amalgam fillings. In 1999 the United States Public Health Service’s Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry stated that mercury passes through the placenta into the unborn brain, and a separate report stated that mercury passes to the baby in the mother’s milk. They further confirmed that poisonous vapours from dental mercury go first to the brain and kidneys (79). Since the late 1999 the use of dental mercury in Sweden has not been subsidised and its use has almost ceased. An outright ban remains on the political agenda. In the USA in 2003 a Bill was before Congress to ban amalgam fillings within 5 years. Dr Levenson (President, British Society for Mercury Free Dentistry) has written a comprehensive account based on observations of more than 6000 patients (28) and the British Society for Mercury-Free Dentistry holds regular conferences to raise awareness of the issues and report the latest research.

Detox Therapies
In chelation therapy, some environmental medicine practitioners use synthetic agents such as DMSA (dimercaptosuccinic acid) and EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) which may produce unwanted side effects due to an excessive burden on the body’s own detoxification systems. They can be effective nevertheless as a one-off treatment or last resort for chronic poisoning.

A range of natural foods and herbs including seaweed also have powerful, natural chelating properties (196).
Chlorella contains chlorophyll known to bind and remove cadmium, lead and mercury, and glutathione, useful in liver detox (195). Spirulina may be especially useful in lead chelation (197). Cilantro (Chinese parsley and leafy coriander) has been found to assist excretion of toxic metals including mercury (198). NAC, MSM, charcoal, selenium, ,agnesium, zinc, and vitamins A, C and the B complex are all useful adjuncts to therapy, all of which are contained in Seagreens® but may warrant additional supplementation if increased amounts are required. A low fat diet containing plenty of antioxidantsincluding such vegetables as onions, garlic, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower and kale will assist detoxification.

Guardian Weekend voted Seagreens® one of the two “best detox aids on the high street” in 2005.

Diabetes

(See also Cardiovascular Diseases, Detoxification, Digestion, Obesity and Weight regulation)

The growth of Type 2 diabetes is the kind linked to unhealthy diet and insufficient exercise.

“A child born in the USA in 2000 has a 1 in 3 chance of contracting diabetes in their lifetime; an African American has a 2 in 5 chance; a Latina 1 in 2. The condition is causing children to succomb to heart disease, blindness and kidney failure and is well on the way to reducing overall life expectancy in the USA. Diabetes costs the US an estimated $92bn in medical expenses and a further $40bn in indirect costs like lost productivity. The American Diabetes Association estimates the disease now accounts for 19% of all US health spending” (102).

In diabetic patients on insulin, iodine supplementation improved control of the condition and in some cases it was alleviated without resort to insulin (122).

It is relevant here that Seagrens® is certified free of environmental contaminants. In 2006, Korean researchers found that diabetes was over 5 times more prevalent in people carrying higher concentrations of a variety of pesticides and other chemicals. All the chemicals in question (eg. dioxins, polychlorinated biphenyls) were lipophilic, which means they tend to collect in body fat (199). More fat means more storage of environmental pollutants.

Research co-operation between Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam Universities and Technostics Ltd, England in 2008 demonstrated the potential of seaweed alginate to offset preclinical metabolic syndrome symptoms including insulin resistance, to treat type 2 diabetes mellitis and hypercholesterolemia, and consequently to reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (200).

Subsequent research studied the efficacy of the alginate in modulating energy intake, suggesting that it may modulate appetite by reducing postprandial glucose spiking and be highly effective in overweight and obese subjects.

These findings highlight the efficacy of “medium to long term use of a daily sodium alginate formulation (already a significant component in whole food Seagreens® without extraction) along side suitable healthy lifestyle changes, may help individuals to achieve this target reduction in (excess) energy intake (201).

As a whole food Seagreens® has the natural advantage of delivering multiple benefits in obese, diabetic and weight regulation subjects: detoxifying the body in a variety of ways, reducing body fat and fats in the blood, improving weight regulation without the de-nutrifying effects of dietary weight control.

Digestion

(see also below under Indigestion)

Seagreens® remarkable nutritional profile is found to be helpful in patients with compromised digestion and metabolism. Seagreens® mucilagenous polysaccharides have a healing effect on damaged intestinal villi. They are known to assist the survival of beneficial intestinal flora and to improve the condition of the gut wall (1). Two mechanisms involved are thought to be the restoration of the fibroplast growth factor activity which stimulates repair of the epithelium, as well as the mucosal properties of the polysaccharides.

They help the body’s acid-alkaline balance being by far the most alkalizing of all natural foods. Seagrens® wild wrack is over 75 times more alkalising than apples (the old saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” is largely a reference to their good effect on acid-alkaline balance.

It is well known that in order to metabolise any single nutrient (eg. a protein or carbohydrate) many other nutrients (eg. enzymes, co-enzymes, trace elements) are required for what is in effect, a very complex process. In the digestion of a single meal, although the body can manufacture many of the nutrients it needs for all the metabolic processes involved, this ‘manufacturing’ must also draw on a vast array of nutrition. Many nutrients required which cannot be obtained from an ordinary diet are present in Seagreens®.

“They (seaweeds) contain soothing, mucilaginous gels such as algin, caragheenan, and agar, which specifically rejuvenate the lungs and gastrointestinal tract” (1). “They have a mucilagenous quality which makes them very soothing and healing for the damaged intestine” and “Large amounts of minerals...maintain the blood in an alkaline condition. Seaweeds are best for this” (4). 

A consumer contributes: "If you cook pulses, eg. black eye beans, with Seagreens® in the water (eg. a teaspoon of Culinary Ingredient), it helps soften the outer wall of the beans, reduces the cooking time and makes them more digestible. The water will contain valuable nutrients so the water should not be discarded. The alkalinity of the seaweed may help balance the acidity of the beans" (F. Vogelburger, London 2009).

Inflammatory conditions of the alimentary tract involve elevated synthesis of the proinflammatory mediators like adhesion molecules, white cell infiltration of gastrointestinal mucosa and altered mucosal integrity. The therapeutic use of heparin has produced clinical remission in the majority of patients with inflammatory bowel disorder and special polysaccharides in brown seaweed have been shown to share many of the properties and modes of action of heparin.

One of the mechanisms involved is the restoration of the fibroblast growth factor activity that stimulates repair of the epithelium. Another is their mucosal protective properties. Since gastrointestinal inflammation can cause the protective mucosal layer of glycosalminoglycans to alter, these polysaccharides are useful because they can be absorbed across the gastro-intestinal mucosa (78).

In 2006 scientists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne demonstrated the value of seaweed polysaccharides, especially alginate, in the international battle against obesity, diabetes, heart disease and diseases such as bowel cancer.

The research paper showed that alginate proved to strengthen mucus, the body's natural protection of the gut wall, can slow digestion down, and can slow the uptake of nutrients in the body (112).

Eczema

(see also below under Skin)

Eczema in adults is a common and frequently repetitive condition and “over the long term, atopic eczema affects family life in 80% of patients” (181).

The standard alopathic prescription medication is hydrocortisone creams which helps control the symptom but the condition frequently reappears when daily use is stopped (183).

Elimination diets which seek to pinpoint food allergies and intolerances have shown that certain foods can trigger eczema in some patients (184). In 2008 Seagreens® sponsored a University MSc nutritional study into the effect of brown seaweed on the skin of 28 carefully profiled eczema sufferers taking 3g mixed Seagreens® (6 Seagreens® Food Capsules) daily for 12 weeks.

As a topical healing agent, brown seaweed has been used with good results over many years. “The activity of enzymatic extracts (of brown seaweed) was even higher than that of the commercial antioxidants” (182).

The topical application of Seagreens® Microgranules mixed with warm water as poultice or compress, may be helpful in the healing of eczema, psoriasis, rash, burns, sunburn, cuts and grazes and other skin conditions (available mail order from Seagreens® Retail Partner www.oceansofgoodness.com / tel 01293-520460 / seaweed@oceansofgoodness.com).

Endometriosis

(see above under Cancer)

Results similar to those in cancer research where seaweed nutrients are found to eliminate or inhibit the growth of cancer cells, were obtained at the University of California in endometriosis in trials using bladderwrack (Fucus vesiculosis).

“The most profound discovery was that women with endometriosis and severe menstrual irregularities experienced significant improvement in their symptoms after just 3 months of taking 700mg of the seaweed capsules per day” (83).

Hair and scalp

A number of our customers have found relief from conditions of the hair and scalp using Seagreens® Food Capsules and/or Food Granules.

"The Food Capsules make a very great difference. My hair is a much better colour now as well as being thicker, after literally about a third of it fell out last year during the summer before it was found that my thyroid is under-active...it helps me in so many ways"

- R. Kearsley, London SW11, 2009

“Seaweed feeds the shafts and the ducts of the scalp to help improvethe health of the hair. It has been said that the thick, black,lustrous hair of the Japanese is partly due to their regular diet ofmineral-rich brown sea vegetables” (160)

Healthy hair requiresmany nutrients, particularly protein, vitamins A, B, C, D and E,essential fatty acids (EFAs) particularly Omega 6, and a range ofmicronutrients particularly zinc (161), all of which are present inseaweeds (162).

 

CASE STUDY

In2005 a female customer in her 40s was prescribed drugs which it is believed causedamong other symptoms, severe hair loss and infection of the scalp. Atthe worst point she was losing 400 - 800 hairs each time she shampooed.

Scalp and hair shampoo as used by our customer twice weekly:

• Mix 1 and a 1/2 teaspoons of Seagreens® Purée diluted* in 1 cupful of luke warm mineral water
• Apply to dry hair, drizzling over the hair using the fingers to work it into the scalp
• Leave onthe head for 30 minutes, then rinse out the Purée using a mild naturalshampoo with no chemical or artificial additives or strong fragrances
  
• Before the end of this 30 minutes, prepare a pot of concentrated nettle tea and leave to cool until approximately body temperature
  
• Pourthe nettle tea over the scalp and leave for a few moments beforetowelling dry (use an old towel which may be slightly stained). Do notrinse out - the tea does not smell.
• We suggest no interim shampooing
• The nettle tea alone can be applied and left in the hair more often than twice a week if this feels appropriate

* The Purée must be diluted before use on the skin since the pH is slightly acid at about 4: this is not harmful but may be uncomfortable if left on the skin longer than 15 minutes when it will tend to ‘dry out’ the skin.

We wish to make it clear that our product and suggested use does not constitute a treatment or cure or herbal remedy. The product is a pure ‘whole food’ and we merely wish to relay this particular customer’s experience, with her permission. The Purée is not yet available in stores and its use is entirely at the customer’s risk.

Heartburn

(see also below under Indigestion)

“For heartburn, grill some dried kombu (a Japanese brown seaweed closely related to Seagreens®) and then eat it” (15).

Heart disease

(see above under Blood, and Cardiovascular)

Helicobacter pylori / ulcer

(See also above under Antibacterial)

Peptic ulcer of the stomach is most common in Blood Type O patients of whom Dr Peter D’Adamo says: “Any blood type O who suffers from ulcers or wants to prevent them, should use wrack seaweed because it will make the ulcer-causing bacteria, H. pylori, slide off the stomach lining” (3).

The fucose component (of the seaweed) is known to act on H. pylori “much as dust would on a piece of adhesive tape: it clogs the suction cups on the bacteria, preventing it from attaching to the stomach” (3, p58, 136).

In vitro and animal studies have demonstrated the efficacy of a fucoidan extract from Cladosiphon seaweed (known in Japan as Okinawan Mozuku) against Helicobacter pylori, further supported by subsequent human trials in a clinical setting, where similar results were observed against gastric ulcer and non-ulcer dyspepsia (166).

Seagreens® wild wrack seaweeds, all members of the order Fucaceae, or Fucus, are rich in fucose especially Seagreens® Food Capsules and Food Granules. Japanese scientists have isolated a definite anti-ulcer substance in seaweed which had antimicrobial activity against a long list of human disease-causing bacteria including E.coli, Pseudomona