Seaweed in Health and Disease Prevention

Joël Fleurence,Ira A. Levine

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780128027936
• Topic: Technologie et ingénierie
• Subtopic: Sciences de l'alimentation

Seaweed in Health and Disease Prevention presents the potential usage of seaweed, macroalgae, and their extracts for enhancing health and disease. The book explores the possibilities in a comprehensive way, including outlining how seaweed can be used as a source of macronutrients and micronutrients, as well as nutraceuticals. The commercial value of seaweed for human consumption is increasing year-over-year, and some countries harvest several million tons annually. This text lays out the properties and effects of seaweeds and their use in the food industry, offering a holistic view of the ability of seaweed to impact or effect angiogenesis, tumors, diabetes and glucose control, oxidative stress, fungal infections, inflammation and infection, the gut, and the liver.

• Combines foundational information and nutritional context, offering a holistic approach to the relationship between sea vegetables, diet, nutrition, and health
• Provides comprehensive coverage of health benefits, including sea vegetables as sources of nutraceuticals and their specific applications in disease prevention, such as angiogenesis, diabetes, fungal infections, and others
• Includes Dictionary of Terms, Key Facts, and Summary points in each chapter to enhance comprehension
• Includes information on toxic varieties and safe consumption guidelines to supplement basic coverage of health benefits

Chapter 1

Algae

A Way of Life and Health

I. Levine University of Southern Maine, Lewiston, ME, United States

Abstract

Macroalgae (seaweeds) are a diverse group of predominantly marine, multicellular, photosynthetic, chlorophyll “a”-containing, eukaryotic organisms found from the intertidal zone to 300-m deep. The approximately 10,000 described macroalgal species are segregated by photosynthetic pigment content, carbohydrate food reserve, cell wall components, and flagella construction and orientation. This eclectic group has evolved over the last 600–900 million years occupying a variety of ecological niches. The diverse utilization of seaweeds for medicinal purposes include: goiter, intestinal afflictions, cancer, cervix dilation, laxative, wound dressing, cholesterol reduction, bleeding control, vermifuge, urinary tract infections, diarrhea, breast infections, tuberculosis, breaking of fevers, headaches, scabies, cardiovascular disease, and fungal infections. The editors have assembled a group of contributors, dedicated to the advancement of algae, experts in their fields of endeavor bringing seaweeds and their role in health and disease prevention to a diverse group of readers.

Keywords

Aquatic plants; Health and disease; Macroalgae; Seaweeds

“Vilor alga” (translated as “more vile or worthless than algae”), wrote Virgil, the Latin Poet, in 30 BC. Civilization was aware of the role of algae in the human condition long before Virgil. The use of macroalgae dates back to Shen Nung, the father of husbandry and medicine, approximately 3000 BC (Doty, 1979). Seaweeds were reported to be utilized in Iceland in 960 BC, the Chinese Book of Poetry (800–600 BC) praised housewives for cooking with algae, and the Chinese Materia Medica (600 BC) refers to algae as follows: “Some algae are a delicacy fit for the most honorable guest, even for the King himself” (Porterfield, 1922; Wood, 1974).

Macroalgae (seaweeds) are a diverse group of predominantly marine, multicellular, photosynthetic, chlorophyll “a”-containing, eukaryotic organisms, lacking true roots, stems, and leaves with simple reproductive structures and found from the intertidal zone to 300-m deep. The macroalgae or seaweeds are evolutionarily diverse and are found in two kingdoms, Plantae and Chromista, and four phyla, Charophyta (Chara), Chlorophyta (green), Rhodophyta (red), and Ochrophyta (brown). The approximately 10,000 described marine macroalgal species are segregated by photosynthetic pigment content, carbohydrate food reserve, cell wall components, and flagella construction and orientation. This eclectic group has evolved over the last 600–900 million years occupying a variety of ecological niches, ie, attached to hard substrata, unconsolidated sand and mud, other algae, seagrasses, free floating, and, on rare occasions, parasitic. There are many additional groups of algae, known collectively as microalgae, including but not limited to the blue green bacteria (eg, Spirulina sp.), diatoms, and dinoflagellates, which can form biofilms, colonial formations, and turfs. Occasionally these formations are considered “macroalgae,” but for the purpose of this text they lie outside of the scope of this book.

Early examples of utilization of seaweeds for medicinal purposes include the Chinese use of Sargassum for goiter (16th century, Chinese herbal, “Pen Tsae Kan Mu”), Gelidium for intestinal afflictions, and Laminaria for the dilation of the cervix in difficult child births (Dawson, 1966). The Japanese’s lack of goiter (one case/million people) is contributed to their large consumption of seaweed and their iodine concentration. Oriental seaweed iodine concentrations range from 18 to 1600 mg/kg dry weight (Chapman and Chapman, 1980). Agar, a phycocolloidal extract from commercial red algae, eg, Gracilaria, has been used since the 17th century as a laxative and is perhaps the world’s first diet fad. In addition, during times of war, agar was utilized as a wound dressing because of its antiblood-clotting activity allowing wounds to be appropriately disinfected. Subsequently, agar was identified as the ideal substrate for culturing bacteria, assisting with the foundational research into the microbial world. Brown algal phycocolloidal extracts, alginate and algin, have been used in the binding of pills and ointments, cholesterol reduction, as a hemostatic agent (control of bleeding), and have replaced agar as the primary dental mold gel. The ancient Greeks utilized red algae as a vermifuge, thought to be the same alga rediscovered on Corsica in 1775, known as Corsican moss. Finally, a common alga from both North America and Europe, Chondrus crispus, a red alga, has been used as a remedy for urinary tract infections, diarrhea, breast infections, and tuberculosis (Dawson, 1966). Additional traditional algal uses as medicines include: dulse (Palmaria palmata) extract used to assist in breaking of fevers (18th-century England), bull kelp steam extract used to fight headaches (Alaska, USA), Durvillaea as a cure for scabies (New Zealand), and antifungal and antibiotic compounds from the brown, green and red algae (Chapman and Chapman, 1980).

The inclusion of large amounts of seaweeds in a balanced diet has been connected to decreased rates of many of the “Western lifestyle” diseases (eg, cancer, cardiovascular diseases). Reduced rates of breast cancer in postmenopausal Japanese women are thought to be connected to the ingestion of seaweeds in general and the kelps Kombu and Wakame in particular. Potential mechanisms include: increased fiber influence on fecal bulk and bowel transit time, alteration of posthepatic metabolism of sterols, antibiotic and enzymatic influence on enteric bacterial populations, and increased immune response (Teas, 1983, as reported in Erhart, 2015a). Additional research efforts include (1) a 95% reduction in cancer rates when fed a hot water-extracted kelp powder and (2) apoptosis of stomach, colon, and leukemia cancer cells by F- and U-fucoidan-sulfated polysaccharides from kelps (Yamamoto et al., 1986 and Anonymous, 1990–1996, as reported in MCSV Cancer Prevention and Treatment bulletin). Miller (2008 as reported in Erhart, 2015b) reported an increase in fibrocystic breast disease in American women rose from 3% to 90% in the 1920s and 2000s, respectively. In addition, he infers that 15% of American women experience iodine deficiencies and the same percentage of American women develop breast cancer; however, Japanese women experience the lowest cancer rates by including 200 times as much iodine per day as their American counterparts (45,000 μg/day and 240 μg/day, respectively). Dr. Miller hypothesizes that both fibrocystic disease and breast cancer are iodine deficiency disorders. Kelps provide some of the highest amounts of bioavailable iodine, up to 18,000 times as much as fresh vegetables.

As a young man coming from New York City, seaweeds were considered to be just a smelly mess found on the beach but after 10 years of studying algae in Hawaii, the author has embraced his Hawaiian roots and uses the term “limu,” which according to Pukui and Elbert (1977) as reported by Abbott (1984) is: “a general name for all kinds of plants living under water, both fresh and salt, also algae growing in any damp place in the air, as on the ground, rocks, and on other plants; also mosses, liverworts and lichens…” However, for most Hawaiians, limu means edible seaweeds (Abbott, 1984). Along with fish and poi, limu constituted the troika of the Hawaiian balanced diet, providing vitamins A, B, C, minerals (iodine), and protein. Historical Hawaiian limu usage included the treatment of coral cuts, representing a nearly instant infection, which were historically treated with Sargassum, similar to the traditional use of mosses as a poultice. In addition, seaweeds were used in religious ceremonies (burial cleansing rituals), cultural celebrations (weddings and hula dancing), and family celebrations.

“Is Seaweed the New Lobster?” was a headline from the March 2015 edition of Down East: The Magazine of Maine; quite a transformation from the “the stuff washed up on the beach, which tends to be rotting and full of flies” (Sneddon, 2015). Maine, a maritime-based state in the northeastern corner of the United States, has a long history of seaweed utilization dating back to its colonial period and beyond, when marine macroalgae were referred to as “sea manure” (Sneddon, 2015). As algae in general and seaweeds in particular have played an ever-increasing role in the human diet, health, and well-being, its utilization and product development have rapidly expanded our appreciation for its diversity of uses. As with lobsters, which were plentiful and served up as food for the state’s prisoner population, seaweeds have been experiencing a frameshift from the smelly stuff on the beach to a source of valued balanced nutrition.

Shep Erhart, the founder of Maine Coast Sea Vegetables, is a pioneer of seaweed utilization in the United States and has dedicated his life to the development and marketing of seaweed products throughout America and beyond. In the 1970s he realized the potential for seaw...