Can undo years of damage
to your heart, brain, joints and nerves
Up to 100 times more potent than blueberries,
pomegranates, and even green tea catechins.
(We already include a great amount of natural antioxidants in many of our formulas. There may be a place for a singular super-antioxidant – although I am not totally convinced of the need yet. However, these are some excerpts from doctors I respect: Rowen, Whitaker and Sinatra. It appears that Seanol may be the best of the antioxidants. I have included some clinical studies, but have not been able to get through all of them yet, and the best sources for Seanol I’ve found. – Best to all, Terry.)
What if I told you that one simple nutrient, ecklonia cava (brown algae or “Seanol”) can improve your cholesterol, boost circulation, enhance memory and mental sharpness, and even help you sleep better?
Research from Dr. Haengwoo Lee, a Korean biochemist now living near Seattle, Washington, has made a startling discovery that few people, even many alternative health doctors, know about. He and his team have found this antioxidant is up to 100 times stronger than the familiar antioxidants vitamins C and E, antioxidant-rich fruits like blueberries, pomegranates and even green tea catechins.
Helps Damaged Arteries
As you may know, your body has special cells called endothelium that line the insides of your arteries and veins. Endothelium generate a chemical called nitric oxide (NO), which keeps your artery walls open, relaxed and healthy.
In a clinical study, researchers looked at patients with damaged artery walls. This artery damage was restricting blood flow and causing heart troubles. But after taking ecklonia cava for just 6 weeks, blood flow increased by more than 50% – confirming this nutrient’s ability to support healthier circulation.
Ecklonia cava also improved cholesterol and supported cardiovascular health! You probably know that many heart problems are not due to cholesterol alone, as the statin peddlers want us to believe. Damage to your heart and artery walls is often determined by how your body handles cholesterol.
In other words, you don’t want the “bad” LDL cholesterol in your arteries to oxidize. Oxidizing means reacting with oxygen, such as when iron “rusts.” When LDL oxidizes, it can damage tears in the endothelial lining of your arteries. But this super-antioxidant inhibits the oxidation of LDL cholesterol.
In fact, in one study, researchers gave this nutrient to 39 adults (average age 55) for six weeks. Patients’ average cholesterol level dropped. Their hard-to-raise “good” HDL rose from 46.5 to 50.7 (significant). It’s very unusual for a natural supplement to raise HDL like this.
What’s more, their triglycerides fell from 215 to 195. The atherogenic index (a key measurement of atherosclerosis) dropped a whopping 12.5%. All this with no lifestyle changes!
The Super-Antioxidant Found Under The Sea
This little-known antioxidant is an extract of compounds found in red and brown sea algae called Ecklonia Cava. Ecklonia Cava grows at a depth of 100 feet off the coast of Korea and Japan. Researchers have named this brown seaweed extract Seanol.
Seanol has a unique molecular structure that gives it a big advantage over any antioxidant found on earth. You see, the power of an antioxidant depends on its structure, which is made up of rings.
Antioxidants use these rings to capture rogue electrons and neutralize free-radicals. The more rings an antioxidant has, the better it works.
For instance, resveratrol from grapes has 2 rings. Most land-based antioxidants (called polyphenols) have 3 interconnected rings. Green tea catechins have 4. Seanol has 8 interconnected rings. That makes Seanol a veritable electron-trapping, free-radical killing machine. It’s been compared to the antioxidant ability of getting 10 servings of fruits and vegetables in a single nutrient!
One of the most powerful antioxidants on the planet
Antioxidant molecules have rings that capture rogue electrons and neutralize cell-damaging free-radicals. The more rings an antioxidant has, the better it works.
- Resveratrol from red grapes has 2 rings
- Catechins from green tea have 4 rings
But the molecules in Seanol have 8 interconnected rings. Making Seanol a veritable electron-trapping, free-radical killing machine!
A Truly Outstanding ORAC Antioxidant Score
You may have also heard that scientist’s measure antioxidant power with something called the ORAC scale. It’s short for “Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity”. The more free radicals a substance traps, the higher the ORAC score.
Well known “health foods” have ORAC scores in the hundreds to low thousands. For instance, the ORAC score of Red Grapes is 739; Oranges 750; Spinach 1,260; and Blueberries 2,400. Premiere antioxidant nutrients have equally surprising ORAC scores: Vitamin E 35; Resveratrol 791; and Tocotrienols 1,059.
Compare these numbers to Seanol’s ORAC score of 8,368! This means that Seanol gives you far more power to fight free-radical damage and prevent the oxidation of healthy cells, which is the number one cause of age-related decline.
Nutritionists recommend that we consume around 5000 ORAC units per day to significantly reduce free radical damage. One serving (half a cup) of most fruits or vegetables gives you roughly 500 ORAC units — one-tenth your daily minimum. But Seanol’s ORAC score of more than 8,368 is like getting your entire days’ worth of antioxidant protection in a single nutrient!
Crosses the Blood-Brain Barrier
Seanol has another big advantage. Virtually all land-based antioxidants (polyphenols) are water-soluble. Water-soluble antioxidants have a hard time penetrating your blood-brain barrier, to protect your brain cells.
Seanol is 40% fat-soluble. That means it has a greater ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and protect the cells of your brain. In fact, it can more easily penetrate the membranes of all your cells, to give them the antioxidant protection they need.
Being fat-soluble also means that Seanol has a much longer active life in your body – up to 12 full hours. Most water-soluble, plant-based polyphenols like blueberries and pomegranates are expelled through your urine in just 30 minutes. This means Seanol may be working inside your body many times longer.
All these advantages helps give Seanol much more free-radical scavenging power than ordinary land-based polyphenols. This is far more than even the popular green tea catechins.
Sharpens Your Memory and Mental Focus
I’ve already mentioned how Seanol can cross the blood-brain barrier, because it is 40% fat-soluble, unlike other antioxidants. Now let’s see how this works inside your brain.
Your memory is dependent on the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh). In lab tests, Seanol increased rodent ACh by 140% in brain regions responsible for learning and memory. And it did this after just 7 days of treatment!
Seanol also improves blood flow by relaxing and opening your arteries. A group of researchers found that Seanol increases the velocity of blood flow in this important artery from an average of 36.68 cm/sec. to 40.09 cm/sec. The placebo group showed no improvement at all.
National Institutes of Health scientists studied Seanol in animals. They found that animals fed Seanol learned maze challenges faster. That shows improvement in short-term memory that’s so vulnerable in cognitive decline. In yet another study, researchers found that Seanol improved alertness in bus drivers and high school students during their daytime activities. Again, this is likely due to increased blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain.
Gives You a Better Night’s Rest and a Boost in Energy
A good night’s sleep is essential for weight loss, immune support, and your overall health. Here’s where Seanol shines again. When researchers gave Seanol to 36 participants in an 8-week study, the results were startling. Seanol cut the time it took for participants to fall asleep by 47 minutes.
It increased total nighttime sleep by 1.6 hours. It improved soundness of sleep by 80%. It even boosted their energy level by 71%. Patients given the placebo showed no improvement.
As you can see, Seanol appears to be an incredible nutrient. But Seanol’s antioxidant power doesn’t stop there. Researchers have also discovered that it:
√ Soothes joint pain and inflammation
Seanol also has the amazing ability to reduce inflammatory COX enzymes. COX enzymes cause inflammation, joint discomfort and pain. As such, Seanol significantly reduced pain in a group of patients with knee and joint problems.
√ Beats fatigue and “mystery pains”
10 Million Americans suffer from unusual muscle pains and excessive fatigue? In a double-blind study, patients suffering from these symptoms took Seanol for 8 weeks and showed dramatic improvement. Patients reported 31% less pain, 71% more energy, better nighttime sleep and 2 more “good days” every week!
√ Supports healthy weight loss
If you’re overweight, you know how difficult it is to shed those few extra pounds. The enzyme DGAT is a big reason. It’s the final step in the synthesis of triglycerides. Triglycerides are nasty blood fats that ultimately wind up in your fat cells.
But researchers found that Seanol inhibits DGAT by more than 50%. In experiments on lab mice, Seanol reduced their body fat and increased their physical activity. Obese mice lost more than 10% of their weight in just 120 days! In a human study, 141 young adults drank a beverage containing Seanol. In just two weeks, their average weight dropped nearly two-and-a-half pounds.
√ Helps you maintain healthy blood sugar
Dietary fat interferes with proper insulin metabolism. This can impair your insulin metabolism. But recent studies show that Seanol reverses fat deposits in the liver and pancreas cells. When researchers fed Seanol to genetically engineered fat mice, it caused a 10% reduction in blood glucose and literally removed fat.
√ Zaps the enzyme that destroys your eyes and nerves
You probably know that high blood sugar can lead to all sorts of health complications. One way that happens is through an enzyme called aldose reductase. Aldose reductase is present in your eyes, nerves, and many other parts of your body. When your blood sugar gets too high, this enzyme converts some of the excess glucose into a sugar alcohol called sorbitol. Sorbitol can build up in your eyes and nerve cells and damage them. Seanol is a potent inhibitor of aldose reductase.
Safe and Effective
Seanol has been studied by teams of PhDs and doctors for more than 15 years. There have been numerous clinical studies in the U.S., Japan, and Korea and over $35 million in research. Patients have taken tens of thousands of doses, with no serious adverse events.
What’s more, Seanol is a “superfood” — not a pharmaceutical or synthetic product. People in Asia have been eating the seaweed it’s based on for centuries. There are no known interactions with drugs, so you can take Seanol without worry if you’re taking medications or other supplements.
Sources:
Seanol is a spendy puppy! (That is why I want to finish going through the studies before personally recommending it.) However, for those ahead of me wanting to get some, the best source I have found so far is Doctors Best at Vitacost. A close second is NutriCology at Swanson’s. Amazon had the NutriCology for less money but the provider was running out of supply.
The links are in our “Additional Supplements.”
References, Published Studies
- Ahn MJ, Yoon KD, Min SY, Lee JS, Kim JH, Kim TG, Kim SH, Kim NG, Huh H, Kim J. Inhibition of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase and protease by phlorotannins from the brown alga Ecklonia cava. Biol Pharm Bull. 2004 Apr;27(4):544-7.
- Athukorala Y, Kim KN, Jeon YJ. Antiproliferative and antioxidant properties of an enzymatic hydrolysate from brown alga, Ecklonia cava. Food Chem Toxicol. 2006 Jul;44(7):1065-74. Epub 2006 Mar 3.
- Chapman VJ, Chapman DJ. (1980). Seaweeds and their uses. London: Chapman & Hall.
- “Compound For Improving Neuralgia Containing Dibenzo-P-Dioxine Derivatives Extracted From Marine Plants And Articles Comprising Thereof”. Korean Patent Application 10-2004-0028066 (Livechem, Inc).
- Fukuyama Y, Kodama M, Miura I, Kinzyo Z, Mori H, Nakayama Y, Takahashi M. Anti-plasmin inhibitor. VI. Structure of phlorofucofuroeckol A, a novel phlorotannin with both dibenzo-1,4-dioxin and dibenzofuran elements, from Ecklonia kurome Okamura. Chem Pharm Bull (Tokyo). 1990 Jan;38(1):133-5.
- Fukuyama, Y., Kodama, M., Miura, I., Kinzyo, Z., Kido, M., Mori, H., Nakayama, Y., Takahashi, M. Structure Of An Anti-Plasmin Inhibitor, Eckol, Isolated From The Brown Alga Ecklonia Kurome Okamura And Inhibitory Activities Of Its Derivatives On Plasmin Inhibitors. Chem. Pharm. Bull. 37: 349-353 (1989)
- Glombitza, K.W., Gerstberger, G. Phlorotannins With Dibenzodioxin Structural Elements From The Brown Alga Eisenia Arborea. Phytochemistry 24: 543-551 (1985)
- Hoppe HA. (1979). Marine algae and their products and constituents in pharmacy. In: Marine Algae in Pharmaceutical Science. Hoppe HA, Levring T, Tanaka Y, eds. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter.
- Kang, K., Park, Y., Hwang, H. J., Kim, S. H., Lee, J. G., Shin, H.-C. (2003). Antioxidative Properties Of Brown Algae Polyphenolics And Their Perspectives As Chemopreventive Agents Against Vascular Risk Factors. Arch. Pharm. Res.. 26: 286-293
- Kang, K.J., Hwang, H.J., Hong, D.H., Park, Y.J., Kim, S,H., Lee, B.H., Shin, H.C. Anti-Oxidant And Anti-Inflammatory Activities Of Ventol, A Phlorotannin-Rich Natural Agent Derived From Ecklonia Cava, And Its Effect On Proteoglycan Degradation In Cartilage Explant Culture. Submitted To Molecular Pathology And Pharmacology
- Kim MM, Ta QV, Mendis E, Rajapakse N, Jung WK, Byun HG, Jeon YJ, Kim SK. Phlorotannins in Ecklonia cava extract inhibit matrix metalloproteinase activity. Life Sci. 2006 Sep 5;79(15):1436-43. Epub 2006 May 7.
- Nakamura, T., Nagayama, K., Uchida, K., Tanaka, R. Antioxidant Activity Of Phlorotannins Isolated From The Brown Alga Eisenia Bicyclis. Fisheries Sci. 62: 923-926 (1996).
- Shibata, T., Fujimoto, K., Nagayama, K., Yamaguchi, K., Nakamura, T. Inhibitory Activity Of Brown Algal Phlorotannins Against Hyaluronidase. Int. J. Food Sci. Tech. 37: 703-709 (2002).