Spirulina – Most Powerful Food Declared Dangerous By Idiots

By Bob McCauley, ND

I despise misinformation and here is a pile of it for you in an article titled What Are the Dangers of Spirulina? by Maia Appleby, Demand Media – found at the website http://healthyeating.sfgate.com, out of San Francisco.  I don’t know exactly where Maia gets all her information but this article is a perfect example of how you can make ANYTHING look bad.

Twinkies and Oreos aren’t all that bad for you, and prove how they are if you make the claim – is the kind of nonsense we hear from people all the time. But take one of the two healthiest foods on the planet, scrutinize it, measure what’s in it down to the parts per billion and then claim: It’s Dangerous!!  This is nothing less than absolute rubbish.

 “Regularly taking blue-green algae supplements, including spirulina, may be harmful to your cells. Because many consumers have reported experiencing adverse health effects after using spirulina, a group of German researchers conducted a study, published in “Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology” in 2011, reviewing the safety of blue-green algae. They analyzed 13 commercially distributed products and found cytotoxins, substances that are harmful to cells, in each of them. The researchers concluded that such nutritional products are highly questionable.”

Well this is pretty deceptive.  The study they refer to states it tested Chlorella, spirulina and Blue green algae, Aphanizomenon flos–aquae or AFA, which comes from Klamath Lake in Oregon, among other lakes in China.

“Only Aph. flos-aquae products were tested positive for MCs as well as the presence of mcyE.  Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology: Toxin Content and Cytotoxicity of Algal Dietary Supplements

Blue-green algae (sic AFA) can also contain a different kind of highly toxic substance, called anatoxin.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: Spirulina (Article)

As the article she sited claims, toxins were only found in AFA, not Chlorella or Spirulina.  But why not cast aspersions on Chlorella and spirulina and group them all together anyway?  Either author Maia doesn’t know what she is talking about when it comes to algae or she’s lying.  Either way she’s dangerous because she spews misinformation.

One thing she is right about:

“Like other water-grown nutritional products, spirulina easily absorbs heavy metals, such as mercury and lead, from its environment. Spirulina grown in areas with large concentrations of these metals can contain dangerously high amounts of of them, passing them on to consumers.”

This is true.  The best spirulina in the world comes from southern India and Southern Taiwan.  Hawaiian spirulina is good – however that is going away – Hawaiian land has become too expensive for the cultivation of Spirulina.  But not Astaxanthin.  The spirulina you need to be careful is that which is cultivated in China, one of the most polluted countries on Earth.

“Spirulina contains microcystins, groups of amino acids that can be toxic to your liver if you take in too much of them, according to Purdue University.”

Agreed.  Microcystin levels of Spirulina need to be monitored carefully and reported twice per year.  Don’t consume Spirulina without knowing the microcystin levels.

Here is the most ridiculous contention Maia offer:

Spirulina contains an abundance of nucleic acids, according to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. These substances, which are related to DNA, produce uric acid when they are metabolized. If too much uric acid accumulates in your body, gout or kidney stones can develop. If you are susceptible to gout attacks or kidney stones, spirulina may be especially harmful to you. To avoid excessive uric acid, the hospital recommends limiting your intake of spirulina to less than 50 grams per day.

One of the keys to longevity is the consumption of nucleic acids (RNA/DNA) and only algae like Chlorella and Spirulina have it in abundance.  The fools in this article tell us to avoid nucleic acids because they cause kidney stones.  Are you kidding me?  You would have to eat several pounds of spirulina to even get noticeable amount of uric acid let alone enough to be dangerous.  Sheer ignorance, quite sheer indeed.  And where did she get this misinformation from:

These researchers, however, go on to suggest that it is not prudent to eat more than 50 g of spirulina daily. The reason they give is that the plant contains a high concentration of nucleic acids, substances related to DNA. When these are metabolized, they create uric acid, which could cause gout or kidney stones. This is of special concern to those who have already had uric acid stones or attacks of gout.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center: Spirulina (Article)

I would love to know who these “Researchers” were that came up with this ridiculous formula of eating no more than 50 grams of spirulina daily to avoid gout and other uric acid related problems, but it seems pretty arbitrary.  Not to mention that 50 grams of spirulina is a huge amount to take each day.  I take around 7 – 8 grams of spirulina daily, and I’m a vegan, so this is what I use for protein – along with chlorella.

Who’s to blame here for all this misinformation and deception?  Maia Appleby for not thoroughly researching spirulina and allowing it to be lumped together with AFA – Blue-green algae, as well as those who wrote the articles she relied on.

Presenting just a little information and not giving the whole picture is a deceptive practice often offered to us by lazy people who don’t really care about what they’re writing.