Even the most brief of visits to the aisles of a health food store such as Whole Foods will introduce you to a bevy of products with outlandish marketing claims. Supplement labels would have you believe that all of your problems are only a few of their company’s products away from being resolved. Lax (but improving) regulations regarding supplement labels and a tendency for some less scrupulous companies to lie outright about the contents of their products creates a treacherous landscape for those trying to enhance their health through supplementation.
With labeling practices as dubious as these in place, it is easy to adopt a cynical attitude towards any sort of claim made about a novel supplement. This attitude is warranted indeed. Many companies will commission professionals with questionable credentials and presumably extinct scruples to advocate their products. How many times have you seen a toothpaste that “four out of five dentists” advocate, with convenient omissions as to the amount of dentists polled, their identities, and their credentials? All of these factors serve to make it very difficult to make informed supplementation decisions, especially when marketing claims are considered.
Two examples of this are chlorella and spirulina. Chlorella is a green algae while spirulina is a blue-green cyanobacterium, a type of bacterium similar to algae. Both are highly edible, and marketed in a very similar way. The word “superfood” is liberally applied to both to imply medicinal benefits beyond their nutritional value. Chlorella, however, has little medicinal benefit. It’s basically a decent plant source of vitamin b12, a vitamin found mostly in animal products. Spirulina is far more interesting. In addition to containing a large amount of both b12 and protein, it has a compound that modulates the immune system to both increase immune response and decrease inflammation – a seemingly contradictory effect considering that inflammation is a reaction of the immune system to cell damage! To this end, it has been demonstrated to assist with nasal congestion related to seasonal allergies. These two supplements demonstrate how two supplements can be touted equally and have much different medical relevance.
– Erik Johnson
Chlorella, a single-celled green algae.
Spirulina, a photosynthetic cyanobacterium.
