Most people know to stay away from lead and other toxic materials. If given a choice, I am sure most of us would opt to live in a world where the air was clean and there was no chance of absorbing any metals or other toxins into our systems. Unfortunately, the industrial revolution and the placement of industrial plants across the nation happened without many people’s approval or a scientific examination of long term effects.
The reality is that many of us absorb toxic materials either from the air we breathe, the water we drink or the food that we eat. While a lot of materials we inhale or ingest can be filtered out of the body, many toxic materials used in industrial production stay in the body throughout our life and can cause health complications if we collect enough of it.
The good news is that there are ways to filter these materials and excrete them from our system. Our bodies just need the help of other organisms to do this. Chlorella is just one such organism that has amazing filtering properties. As an algae, it acts like a sponge to many things it comes in contact with. This is also why it’s important to ingest algae grown in clean water rather than trying to eat wild algae: the wild algae has probably already absorbed a lot of toxic material we don’t want in our body.
Two such toxins chlorella can help filter out are cadmium and lead. We can absorb these materials in many different ways: smoking cigarettes, living around industrial plants, contaminated water, runoff into crops and much more (EPA 1). Chances are that we all have absorbed a little amount of these toxins. Chlorella absorbs these toxins, binds to them and carry them out of our bodies. Just think; every time someone ingests chlorella, they are purifying their body a little more! With fewer toxins in your system, you will feel clearer, cleaner and healthier.
Another absolutely amazing effect of chlorella is its ability to correct one of the major malfunctions caused by cancer. If cells don’t die from an external force, then they are programmed to die naturally at a given time; an event called apoptosis (Azamai 14). Cancer hinders that programming and the cell continues to live without purpose: this is one of the main reasons tumors develop. Chlorella has been proven to trigger apoptosis in cells infected with cancer and in so doing, help the body filter out those cancerous cells (Azamai 17).
These are some serious health concerns that chlorella aids in treating! ‘Superfood’ is a term that has been thrown around a lot lately, and mostly just because it’s a hot topic right now, but this form of algae really does provide very important filtering for the body. It’s almost like a Brita® filter, but for your body! Even if you aren’t suffering from any of the aforementioned ailments, the algae will still pull many toxins out of your body and purify your system, leaving you feeling increasingly clean with every day.
Mohd Azamai et al., “Chlorella vulgaris triggers apoptosis in hepatocarcinogenesis-induced rats,” Journal of Zhejiang University SCIENCE B, 2009:pg 14-21.
Yun, HyeJun et al. “Protective effect of Chlorella vulgaris against lead-induced oxidative stress in rat brains.” Journal of Health Science, 57(3), 2011; pg 245-254.
Justo, Giselle Z et al. “Effects of the green algae Chlorella Vulgaris on the response of the host hematopoietic system to intraperitoneal ehrlich ascites tumor transplantation in mice.” Immunopharmacology and Immunotoxicology, 23(1); pg 119-132.
.