Algae Power: Spirulina And Chlorella For Your Health

Catharine Arnston

Meg, it’s so great to be here.

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

I am excited to talk about all things algae EnergyBits.

Catharine Arnston

Me too. 

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

We have a lot of great things to share today, but I just wanted to start with a brief introduction to you because you have a purpose behind this company and why you started it. Would you just share a little bit about your story?

Catharine Arnston

Because you have to say, how does somebody become an algae nutrition expert? I’ve been studying algae now for 14 years, so much so that I’m now going to be writing my exams to get my PhD because I’ve learned so much and I’m eager to share. But I tell people I didn’t choose algae, it shows me. I’m Canadian. I have an MBA; I was doing international business, and then 16 years ago, my younger sister, who I’m very close to and who still lives in Canada, developed breast cancer. The first thing I want everyone to know is that she has completely healed, and we celebrate her being cancer-free every year. But when she was preparing for her chemotherapy, her oncologist, who was, fortunately, a woman because women tend to be a little bit more open to nutrition, told her she needed to change her diet to an alkaline diet because it would be helpful for her healing. They didn’t tell her what an alkaline diet was or why, specifically, it was good for her. My baby sister called me, and I wanted to help her, but I had no idea about nutrition at all. Like many of us, I found out that an alkaline diet was mostly a plant-based diet because of the chlorophyll, which builds your immune system, and the phytonutrients. Also, a German scientist back in the 1940s by the name of Otto Warburg won a Nobel Prize for discovering that cancer cannot exist in slightly alkaline cells. All these things contributed to my sister’s oncologist’s desire for her to have an alkaline diet. Anyway, she did go through chemotherapy. She did change her diet to an alkaline diet. I learned more about plant-based nutrition. the powerful healing attributes that were available. I gave up my 25-year corporate career and decided I somewhat had to tell the world about it because, 16 years ago, nobody was talking about plant-based nutrition like they are now. Then I got some nutrition training, gave a lecture, and developed my curriculum, teaching plant-based nutrition. This is what led me to algae, because everybody I gave my lectures to said, I’m supposed to eat more vegetables, but I don’t like them and there’s too much work to do, too heavy to carry home. I thought I had to find something that gives people the nutrition of vegetables without any of the work. I went back to see everything I’d found for my sister. That’s when I got to algae, which is the most alkaline food in the world and the most nutrient-dense food in the world. Even NASA has been feeding it to astronauts for almost 50 years and says that one gram of algae has the same nutrition as 1000 g of vegetables. It’s been endorsed by the United Nations as the answer to world hunger because it has three times the amount of protein in a steak. It’s been used in Asia daily for over 60 years, where it’s grown as an agricultural crop. Algae is not a supplement. It is a vegetable crop grown in fresh water. Algae is in the ocean, but we don’t grow ours in the ocean, and all the benefits, some of which we’ll talk about today, are documented in almost 100,000 studies. None of this is conjecture. It’s on a solid scientific footing. The only problem with algae, it seemed to me, was that nobody outside of Asia knew about its healing properties and that the quality was poor because most of it came from China. 14 years ago, I drew a line in the sand and decided I would devote my life to learning more about algae, helping people understand its scientific attributes, healing attributes, and nutrients.  I would provide a very safe, clean source. We get ours from Taiwan. That was 14 years ago, and here I am, still doing it and still loving it. I’ve done a little heavy lifting. I’ve read probably at least 3000 scientific papers on PubMed at this point, so you don’t have to. I try to make the science of algae easy to understand because it is remarkable what this amazing food provided to us by Mother Nature will do for you. But it has to be high-quality, and it has to be nutrient-dense. There’s a lot of variety, like anything. I’m very proud of what we provide for people.

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

Let’s dive into the science behind that. Then we’ll get into how we can use this for mass activation and histamine issues. Because you and I have been talking about some research and I’ve been using it, but before we get into that specifically, let’s talk about algae and just the difference because there are different types of algae. Explaining to each other what they do. 

Catharine Arnston

There’s so much misunderstanding or no understanding. I’m happy to do that. Thank you for the opportunity. Algae was the first life on Earth; mammals existed four billion years ago. Just as a point of reference, we’ve been on Earth for 200 million years, so brilliant algae predates us by a long shot. Algae is its food category. There are two main subcategories. One is called macroalgae, and the other is microalgae. We’re going to mostly be talking about microalgae today, but let me tell you what macroalgae is. It’s that stringy stuff that washes up on shore, also known as seaweed. It’s called seaweed because it’s only in the sea, and it’s still good for you because it has high fiber and high iodine. If you’re looking for iodine, it has virtually zero nutrition. I used to buy bags of kelp noodles, and there’d be like two calories in an entire bay because there’s just fiber, not nutrition. Microalgae, which we’re talking about today, Spirulina and chlorella are two examples of microalgae. They are opposite macroalgae. First of all, macroalgae is only in the sea. Microalgae is everywhere. It’s in the sea, but it’s also in the rivers. The lakes, the streams, the soil. You’re swimming pool, your aquarium, and we harvest it, as most people do in freshwater spirulina and chlorella, the two that are grown as vegetable crops, not from the ocean. If you read about blue-green algae closing your favorite beach, we’re not talking about spirulina. That’s another. That’s the bad boy relative that’s out in the ocean. Number one, microalgae is everywhere. Number two, it has either zero fiber or is completely contrasting to macroalgae. Spirulina is a bacteria. It has zero fiber. Chlorella does have some fiber, but very little. The most important thing to know is that it is the most nutrient-dense food in the world, opposite to macroalgae. You can see macroalgae, high fiber, zero nutrition, and microalgae, zero fiber, and high nutrition. There are tens of thousands of strains of microalgae. One strain is blue-green, one is green, one version is blue-green is spirulina, and one version of green is chlorella. They are completely different algae. They’re different from one another, as night is from the day, and they do completely different things in your body. We’ll go into some of that today. But the thing that you need to know is whether you go to Target Whole Foods or come to our website, energybits.com. Spirulina and chlorella are harvested in crops; this is a spirulina farm. this is the Chlorella farm. There are blue-green algae in the ocean. But it’s not spirulina or chlorella. These are grown hydroponically in freshwater. We’re known for having the highest quality because we grow ours. triple-filtered spring mountain water. That’s important because algae will absorb whatever’s in the water. You need it to be super clean. We grow it in freshwater, then we air-dry it into a powder, which is also unique for us. We don’t use high heat. As you’re going to find out, high heat kills very many of the antioxidants.  not all the antioxidants, but all the enzymes and some antioxidants. Like a big one called superoxide dismutase. It’s a mouthful. It protects your mitochondria, but all the other algae companies use high heat, so they are deactivated. Also, the blue pigment in spirulina is called Phycocyanin, which has some healing properties for reducing histamine reactions. It is also deactivated by high heat. You don’t want algae from China because they use high heat to dry it. Then we press it into these tablets that we affectionately call bits because they’re bits of food. As you can see, algae is everywhere, but it is harvested in freshwater as a food or agricultural crop. There’s so much, and then we press it. This is the other thing I forgot to tell you about. We press them into these little tablets. As I said, are called bits.

You can see that spirulina is darker. It’s blue-green Algae and it has two pigments in it. The blue one that you’ve probably never heard of before is called Phycocyanin. It only exists in spirulina. The other algae and spirit pigment in spirulina is chlorophyll, which you’ve heard of before. That’s what makes plants green, and chlorella is just green. You can see the difference in the color. But that blue pigment, and there’s scientific research about it, shows that it helps reduce mast activation. We’re going to get into that later on about how spirulina and chlorella both protect you because they both reduce inflammation, particularly spirulina. There’s quite a bit of research about it. suppressing mast cell activation. It helps with reducing histamine.

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

Can we talk a little I love how you gave us the how to produce what we’re using. We talked a little bit about the difference as well. Kind of what you’re using one for versus the other because we’re using them for different purposes.

Catharine Arnston

Correct. Spirulina is a blue-green algae. We call it our energy bits because Spirulina is known for giving you energy. It gives you energy in the moment, both mentally and physically, because it’s loaded and has the highest protein content in the world. That’s why the United Nations endorses it and it’s a complete protein. Both of them are complete proteins. They have 18 of the 20 aminos. But what’s unusual about spirulina is that not only does it give you energy at the moment, but it’s also loaded with B vitamins, which convert the amino acids into glucose and give you energy. But there are nutrients in here that improve the creation of what’s called cellular energy. Cellular energy is like the electricity that keeps your body alive. It’s energy for everything. Not just running to the grocery store. This is thinking about neurotransmitters, the lymphatic system, the heartbeat, and immune system production. Everything that is required for your body to function properly and effectively requires cellular energy, and all that cellular energy, which is called ATP, is produced by something called the mitochondria. These mitochondria are the organelles in all of your cells. Just to give you an idea of how many there are, there are two million mitochondria per cell in your brain. This is why one of the best things about spirulina is that it helps with brain fog. But the particular nutrients in spirulina, like an antioxidant called superoxide dismutase, stop free radical damage to your mitochondria because, as you get older, you have fewer mitochondria and the few that remain tend to be damaged. They’re more susceptible to damage because of the lack of this antioxidant called SOD. It’s Superoxide Dismutase. Your body makes this SOD from the moment you’re born, but by the time you hit 30, you have less of it. by the time you have hit 40, there’s zero.  You can’t get SOD from any food except spirulina and chlorella. Spirulina has the highest concentration, but it’s also an enzyme. All those other companies which use high heat to dry it, deactivate that SOD, it’s active in our algae or you could get it from frozen spirulina. The way I describe how this works is why it’s so energizing. Because when you have more mitochondria, they can generate more cellular energy. That means your body has more electricity, to do more things like heal from your illness or prevent you from getting an illness, or have more energy to move, to think, to have your heart work. But, the way it works is that when your body’s creating, this cellular energy ATP, the byproducts are free radicals. It’s just the way it is. This thing called SOD, which your body normally makes is like an umbrella because what it does is take the free radicals and turn them into harmless water so your mitochondria don’t get damaged. You’ve had this big golf umbrella from the moment you’re born, protecting your mitochondria from all this free radical damage. But then, by the time you’re 30, your big golf umbrella, SOD, is gone; there’s less of it. It’s like having a little city umbrella now, like one of those totes. By the time you’re 40, that little umbrella has shrunk even more. It’s about the size of a cocktail umbrella, and then you have none. At all times, there’s been free radical release through the ATP cellular energy process. But you’ve been protected until suddenly you hit 40. Now that the umbrella is gone, the free radicals are hitting the mitochondria, damaging them, killing them, or mutating them. This reduces your cellular energy, which means you cannot fight infections. This is why this cancer can take hold. This is why you have too much histamine. This is why you have brain fog, weight gain, and digestive issues. The key is getting your mitochondria protected again. That thing called SOD is alive and well in spirulina if it has not been exposed to high heat. It’s like a superhero. It gives you back your superhero capabilities, and you can reverse your illness because your cells are constantly regenerating. If we can get your mitochondria back on track, get in, and heal again, it’s like getting your umbrella back.

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

We all want that.

Catharine Arnston

Who wants to be stuck in the middle of a rainstorm? But that’s what happens to your mitochondria. You’re just shielding them. But they need the shield. Most antioxidants can’t get into that inner membrane of the mitochondria, but this one called superoxide dismutase can glutathione as well, which is also in high concentration in spirulina, chlorella, and chlorophyll. Those are three that melatonin can get in there as well. We need to find ways to get these handfuls of antioxidants into the mitochondria to shield them from these free radicals because when you have fewer mitochondria, you can’t protect yourself or heal from illnesses. It’s just a downward spiral.

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

We were talking about how there’s now been research done in MCAS even with spirulina mixed with histamine. Do you want to go into some of that?

Catharine Arnston

I was quickly thinking, There are quite a few pieces of research out there. Some of them were in clinical trials with humans somewhere in vitro. It’s extraordinary. how much research there is, there’s just in fact, this particular one about nutraceuticals, it was particularly looking at Phycocyanin which is that blue, that blue pigment that’s in the spirulina. What it does is reduce the release of the histamine, the IgE, which binds to proteins and is the allergy antibody. That’s what causes inflammation. that causes the release of histamine. We’ve had customers tell us that they forgot to take their medication with them and that their allergies were fine. They just doubled up on the spirulina while they were away, and their allergies were fine. Even my team and I live in Boston, and we’re surrounded by trees. We just went through the big spring bloom. If you have allergies, it’s very uncomfortable. But everyone here at the company takes our spirulina chlorella, and it’s amazing how much easier it is for them to get through the spring bloom of flowers. it works totally. It works in science and it’s food. What I tell people is that maybe you’re taking the spirulina because you’re an athlete and you want energy for your workout, but you’re going to get all of these other benefits, like the ability to protect your mitochondria. You’re going to have less brain fog, and you’ll have less histamine. Or maybe you’re taking it for the histamine reduction. You’re also going to get better skin. You’re going to get rid of more brain fog, and your digestion will be better. and we only talked about spirulina. I will give you a quick overview of chlorella as well because they’re quite different. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, whatever purpose you decide to use it for. because it’s food and it’s 99% bioavailable, especially spirulina, which has no cellulose wall. There is no fiber for your body to have to break down to get access to. It’s in your bloodstream in minutes or seconds if you chew it. I will admit that the flavor of spirulina is an acquired taste. Most people do swallow it, but it’s still amazing in terms of the speed at which it gets into your bloodstream. This is important because a lot of supplements get damaged in your gut during the digestive process. But this gets into your bloodstream so quickly, that it’s almost like bypassing digestion. It’s very efficient nutrition. Who wants to take medications when you can get them naturally from food?

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

That’s a huge point that you’re making—that it’s food. That’s why I have been switching. We’re going to get into Chlorella. But when we, a lot of people with mast cell activation syndrome and histamine intolerance, react to a lot of different supplements, we can become hyperreactive, and we’re working on the root cause; we’re getting all of those things figured out. But in the meantime, we also need to make progress on the things that we’re doing. One of those things is that sometimes we need to detox; we need to pull things out of our bodies.  As we get into chlorella, I have been switching people who are reacting to some of the things that we’re trying supplement-wise over to chlorella because it is a food. There’s no binding, there’s no filling, and there’s nothing else in there, it’s another avenue to take, especially when you’re reacting to so many things. it’s a nice option.

Catharine Arnston

That’s a great segue to Chlorella. As I mentioned, spirulina is the algae that puts nourishment into your body, into your mitochondria. It generates cellular energy. It’s just giving you more ammunition to live and more electricity to live is probably a better way. Then chlorella’s claim to fame is that it pulls out toxins, so it still has nutrients, 40 vitamins, minerals, and high protein. But it doesn’t give you energy. It doesn’t satisfy your hunger, but it removes toxins. We’re talking about heavy metals like lead, mercury radiation, aluminum alcohol, lactic acid, pesticides, and glyphosate. The average adult in America now has 700 toxins in them. though, and even if you’re adjusting your diet or using something like spirulina, if you can’t get the toxins out, you’re not going to get the true healing benefits. The way I describe it is that I live here in Boston, as I mentioned, and parking is a premium. Having a parking space is a very treasured thing. Let’s say you have a parking spot and you pay good money for it.  You come home from work, and someone’s in your parking spot. You can’t get into your parking spot because someone else is there. Same as toxins in your cells. You have these things called receptor cells. If you have toxins attached to that receptor cell, it’s blocking the way for good nutrients to get in. You can’t get the full benefit of the healthy nutrient blocking, either by blocking the way in, rerouting it, or just causing other havoc. You want to pull those out, and that’s what Chlorella does. I feel it’s much better than activated charcoal, which will pull out all minerals, but I find that’s a problem. You could become dehydrated because you’ve lost all your electrolytes. Chlorella only pulls out the heavy metals and toxins. It introduces. potassium, magnesium, and all the electrolytes. Now, it also has all the nutrients that build your immune system. Your immune system is primarily in your gut. You need a healthy immune system because this is what releases the cells, like the killer cells and the T cells, that will protect you from invaders and regulate that immune system. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get into the overreaction with the cytokines. Chlorella helps with that. it also has but it does have fiber in it. Fiber feeds the gut biome. Healing the gut area. It has the highest concentration of chlorophyll in the world. I mentioned earlier that spirulina has the highest protein in the world and has chlorophyll as well. Chlorella has the highest chlorophyll. I’m going to show you something. This is the chemical composition of hemoglobin. This is the chemical composition of chlorophyll. They are virtually identical. The only difference is that chlorophyll has magnesium, and the metal in your blood has iron. That’s what carries oxygen into your blood. When you take chlorella, you’re building your blood; you’re building healthy blood; you have more nutrients to be directed to yourselves, to your brain, and mitochondria. that’s good. Also, chlorophyll kills bacteria everywhere—in your gut, in your colon, and your brain. It’s and that’s why algae blooms show up on your beach. You went to close your beaches because it kills bacteria. It absorbs toxins and kills bacteria. It’s the cleanup crew. The thing in your body. For most people, we recommend you take the chlorella at night because that’s when your body goes through a detox repair cycle. so you’ll get a. It also has the highest tryptophan level in the world, which helps you get into a deep sleep. Won’t make you sleepy. Just help you get there. It’s a precursor to melatonin. Also, it has something called chlorella growth factor, which stimulates healthy growth cells and also stimulates stem cells. You can see that it’s a very healing algae. That’s why we call them our chlorella recovery bits because they’re very helpful in helping you recover. You can see how they work differently. Spirulina is very nourishing and energizing in the moment and also at the candidate level. We say, Well, I’ll take this in the morning or the afternoon, and then chlorella because it’s a cleansing, detoxifying, immune-building algae. That kills bacteria and pulls out all the junk in your trunk because it stimulates peristalsis. It’s an evening of algae. I’ve also realized that when you go to hotels, sometimes you get room service, which gives you all the energy and nourishment you need for the day. I thought That’s like spirulina gives you all the nourishment and energy you need for the day. Then, when you come back to your room later on, it’s all cleaned up, all the garbage is taken out, and your beds are made up. That’s like chlorella. It pulls out all the toxins, all the junk in your trunk, and cleans everything out. Think of spirulina as room service and chlorella as housekeeping. That might help you understand the difference.

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

That’s like, that’s a good analogy. I have a couple of questions that I feel the listeners will probably want to know. The chlorella, like activated charcoal, pulls out minerals and everything. You have to spread it out through food or other supplements, medications, or things like that. Do you need to do that with chlorella?

Catharine Arnston

The only thing I would say is that it does pull out the toxins and metals. If there are metals in any medications, I’m only aware of that being in vaccines. But if you find out there’s metal in your medications, then you would want to take them two hours before or two hours after. On the other hand, if you’re getting radiation or chemotherapy treatment, we strongly recommend you take chlorella the day after your treatments to pull out all the excess so that you’re not as nauseous. It’s great for anybody who has cancer and is going through that treatment protocol. With spirulina, there’s zero contraindication. There’s no contraindication for either of them. But with spirulina, you don’t have to be conscious of it being taken near or with any medications because it’s not a detoxifying algae. It’s cleansing, but it’s not detoxing. That’s only the chlorella. And by the way, both of them are safe for children, pets, and grandparents. We encourage you to help your older family members, especially with spirulina, because they’re probably not getting the nourishment they need. There’s no need for them to decline as they age. Aging is natural. Declining is not. We want to keep people as healthy as they can be. spirulina, even if you changed nothing else. In terms of dosage, ten tablets of spirulina in the morning or afternoon could replace many of your multivitamins, your fish oil, and your CoQ10. It replaces a lot of things. Again, it’s food that could cook. It can replace your animal protein if you want. then chlorella, same thing. Ten tablets in the evening for wellness benefits. It could replace your vegetables if you don’t like vegetables. You would never have to eat another one again for detox purposes, though; you would need 30. So the medicinal quantities of each would be 30. Spirulina. If you have an illness of any kind or a correction that you’re trying to make, 30 tablets of each is better. But if you just want to plug a few nutritional holes and start slowly, ten each morning and evening would work out. just to put it in context, people sometimes have sticker shock when they come to our website because a bag of each one is $130. But I use the quote from NASA that says that one gram of algae has the same nutrition as 1000 grams of vegetables, so one bag of a thousand tablets has the same nutrition as 551 pounds of vegetables. That’s like 30 grocery carts of food right there in that one day. If you only want to take two tablets, that’s fine too. But if you do take ten tablets a day and we have a 20% discount code in your community that brings that price down to 104, the code is histamine, and you take ten tablets a day. That works out to a dollar a day. A dollar a day to protect your health. You can’t even get a coffee for a dollar a day, for goodness sakes. A coffee will not change your life like spirulina will. This is game-changing for your health. Protects what you have. Corrects which you don’t. I can’t urge you enough to start getting on the algae training because it is the food of the future, and it is food. It’s very affordable, and when you put it that way, you start to understand what it equates to. I just want to encourage people to take a closer look at it and not be afraid of the price because it’s very concentrated. I call it intelligent food because you have to be intelligent to take it, and it knows what to do when it’s in your body.

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

Perfect; I love that. Thank you so much. You’ve given us such great information. Do you have anything else you want to share about where people can find out more information?

Catharine Arnston

Come to our website even if you don’t want to buy anything. We write a full blog every month, and it’s a science reference. We don’t say anything that can’t be referenced by science, and if you want to try it out and not make the big investment, we do sell little pouches on Amazon for $6. if you’re looking for a looking for a very affordable way to try it out. There are 30 tablets in a pouch. If you took ten a day, that would be three days worth, or if you took lunch, that could be lunch. and it’s got three times the amount of protein, so you wouldn’t be hungry for five hours. Not spaghetti full, hungry full. But it would be nourishing and stop hunger. That’s one way to try it. Slowly. The other thing I just like to leave with people is that algae isn’t new. It’s just new to you. It’s been here for almost four billion years. The Egyptians wrapped themselves up in it 2000 years ago. The Aztecs used it as a main food 250 years ago. It’s been used daily in Asia for 60 years. 99% of algae is grown there, and 99% of us are consumed there. But why should they be the only ones benefiting from the longevity, the health, and the wellness? I want you to enjoy it too. You didn’t probably know about Chia, Kiwa, matcha, bone broth, or collagen powder until about ten years ago. All of these things have been used by indigenous peoples in other countries. But then it took somebody to introduce it to you. I want to assure you that algae isn’t new; it’s just new to you. Mother Nature’s been waiting for you patiently to notice it and it will change your life in a way that no other food can. But it has to be of high quality, or you’ll be missing a lot of the nutrients. I can’t take credit for algae, but I will take credit for growing it and drying it carefully so we preserve all the nutrients. You could give it to your newborns and know that it’s safe. I welcome you to the algae world. We’re so excited to find you. It will help you with your histamine issues and a thousand other things. Thank you, Dr. Meg, for letting me share.

Meg Mill, PharmD, AFMCP

Thank you so much for being here.

Catharine Arnston

Thank you. Take care, everybody.