The regulation of any metabolic disorder from mineral imbalance to obesity, and the gradual cleansing of the whole system from digestion to lymph and circulation is Seagreens® most important contribution. In addition its support for the gut flora and balanced nutritional input at both the gut and cellular level makes for the gradual but significant results which are highlighted in most reports.

Various modes of action combine to assist in metabolism. Most evidently, Seagreens® contains all the nutrients - including many that will be missing in a normal meal. It is well known that in order to metabolise any single nutrient (for example a protein or a carbohydrate), many other nutrients (for example enzymes, co-enzymes, trace elements) are required for what is, in effect, a highly complex process.

In the metabolism of a single meal, this picture can be hugely complex, and although the body can manufacture many of the nutrients it needs, this ‘manufacturing’ also must draw on a vast array of nutrition. Many of the nutrients required can be obtained only from the diet, and many are missing. Many are missing from the soil that all land food is grown in, and very few foods have anything other than a narrow selection of nutrients, which is why a little of many different foods is better than a single food, for example, rice, which results in malnutrition, however much is available.

By ensuring the daily presence of all the nutrients - especially the rarer micronutrients - Seagreens® provides an ideal ‘foundation’ for effective metabolism at the level of the gut.

In addition to this comprehensive balance of nutrients - the outstanding nutritional profile of Seagreens® - the ‘synergistic’ effect has to do with the fact that many food nutrients will only ‘release’ their full potency and value to the body in the presence of other specific nutrients without which they will pass from the body partially or wholly unused.

For example, to make use of protein, requires (among many other nutrients) vitamin B6. But B6 itself requires (among others) vitamin B2 and magnesium. But then again, too little folic acid would hinder our absorption of thiamine (vitamin B1), which would impair our ability to absorb carbohydrate. All of these are micronutrients, and most must be obtained from the diet.

The net effect in many cases, is that Seagreens® enables the body to obtain from the other food being eaten, more of the very nutrients which themselves may only be present in tiny amounts in the seaweed. A research example from horticulture may make the point more simply: although the seaweed is relatively low in phosphorus, in trials it enabled plants to absorb greater amounts of phosphorus from the soil - precisely because other nutrients in the seaweed allow the plant to do so.

In the human body, this is why deficiencies of a known nutrient - for example iron or iodine - are sometimes remedied not by administering that nutrient alone, but by ensuring the presence of other nutrients which the body needs to metabolise the ‘deficient’ nutrient which is actually already present in the diet.

Metabolism includes not only the body’s uptake, but actual utilisation of nutrients and this is influenced by the health of the bacteria in the gut and the health of the gut wall. Here the actual transition of nutrients into the lymph and via the circulatory system to the cells of the body, takes place.

Seagreens®’ special polysaccharides are known to assist the production of beneficial intestinal bacteria and the condition of the gut wall (17, 63).

Horticultural research has also repeatedly shown this seaweed to directly stimulate bacterial activity in the soil, particularly those such as fluorescent pseudomonads which are also antagonistic to fungal pathogens, so help minimise the risk of soil borne disease. It should be understood that in this respect the soil is to the plant, much the same as the stomach is to the human body.

There is also good scientific evidence for Seagreens®’ immune enhancing, anti-viral and anti-microbial properties (63, 10). Hence this type of seaweed is considered to have “exceptional value” in the natural treatment of Candida overgrowth (Candidiasis) (1, 24) in the intestine.

There are also numerous mechanisms, well supported by scientific research, by which Seagreens® improves circulation and the condition of the blood, in its turn assisting the distribution and uptake of nutrients by the cells - not least because the seaweed provides an almost ideal balance of all the mineral salts in much the same proportions as the body tries to maintain in its own plasma.

See also Obesity

See also Weight Regulation