Pigments, phytochemicals, vitamins, and trace elements from algae and higher plants can help boost the human body’s antioxidant defenses. 256, 257 Aph. flos-aquae has an unusually wide variety of antioxidants, such as tocopherols, beta-carotene, flavonoids, superoxide dismutase, glutathione, taurine, tryptophan, phenolic acid, and vitamins C, E, B5, and B2. Antioxidants are biomolecules that protect organisms from the damaging effects of reactive oxygen species (free radicals) that are constantly formed in biological systems.

Blue-green algae contain a wide range of antioxidants in the form of specific trace minerals, amino acids, vitamins, and especially pigments – an impressive variety of carotenes along with potent green and blue pigments. Depending on the source of blue-green algae, the amount of phycocyanin can range up to 15% of its dry weight.

Replicated studies with a range of experimental animal models have established the potent antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects of phycocyanin. In rodents, experimentally-induced colitis as well as edemas of the paw and ear all responded positively to C-phycocyanin. 260-264

Gitte Jensen, an immunologist from McGill University, and her team at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal report that Aph. flos-aquae algae may help to inhibit and to reverse inflammatory conditions. The researchers observed that small dilutions of Aph. flos-aquae algae tend to dampen the release of reactive oxygen species from certain phagocytic cells in human blood. 267

Scientists at the University of Padova, Italy, found that diatoms, golden brown unicellular algae, produce anti-inflammatory chemicals that are the main active ingredients in mud-pack treatments. In European health spas the use of mud-packs for the treatment of rheumatic and osteoarthritic patients has a long and relatively successful history. The maturation of thermal mud is dependent upon the full colonization of the mud by ther-mophilic microorganisms, with diatoms producing anti-inflammatory sulfoglycolipids (SGL), similar to those in blue-green algae. A typical cycle of treatments requires 12 packs of thermal mud.

“On this basis we calculated the amount of SGL taken up by each patient in a cycle of treatments, and found a figure not far from the recommended dose of non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs utilized for the same pathology. However, unlike pharmaceutical preparations, the amount of SGL taken up by the patients after the mud-packs does not exert any adverse gastrointestinal effect on these patients,” reported the scientists. 268 Additionally, the anti-inflammatory action of SGL is consistent with the decrease of serum interleukin-1 observed in arthrosic patients treated with mud-packs. 269

Overall, evidence suggests that microalgae demonstrates at least four antioxidant properties:

1. Scavenging of reactive oxygen species (free radicals).
2. Regeneration of endogenous antioxidants, such as SOD and glutathione reductase.
3. Chelation of heavy metals.
4. Repair of oxidation-damaged proteins.