Health Benefits of Chlorella,
One of the World's Most Nutritious Foods

Chlorella is one of the most familiar of the single-celled plants known as blue-green algae. It is most commonly taken in capsules or powder form and is known as a dietary supplement, although you could just as well call it the world's most nutritious food.

Primary Health Benefits of Chlorella. Chlorella provides natural detoxification, inflammation control, cholesterol control, immune system strength, estrogen balance, blood sugar stabilization, and digestive health.

Nutritional Content of Chlorella. Chlorella has many significant and unique nutrients. It contains 58 percent highly digestible, complete vegetarian protein. It is a superior source of chlorophyll, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. To get the full story of chlorella's nutritional value, see my page on Chlorella's Nutritional Content

Health Benefits of Chlorella

Including chlorella in your daily diet provides you with more energy, better digestion, improved mental clarity, and stronger organs and tissues.

Specific health benefits of chlorella include the following:

• diminishes asthma and allergy symptoms
• helps protect the liver from toxins, including prescription drugs
• binds to toxic heavy metals and helps eliminate them from your body
• reduces blood pressure and cholesterol levels

• helps prevent cardiovascular disease
• helps control symptoms of ulcerative colitis
• strong anti-inflammatory effects improve
arthritis symptoms
• helps enhance digestion and bowel function
• promotes growth of lactobacillus to
promote colon health

• strengthens the immune system
• stimulates growth and repair to tissues
• improves skin disorders (eczema, acne, dermatitis)
• helps prevent cancer and the growth
of tumors

• protects the intestinal lining
against peptic ulcers
• helps normalize blood pressure
• balances estrogen
• stabilizes blood sugar

Health Benefits of Chlorella: Cleansing & Detoxification. Chlorella works in several ways to keep your body clean:

It helps keep the blood clean by cleansing your bowel and other elimination channels, as well as protecting your liver. A clean bloodstream, with an abundance of red blood cells to carry oxygen, is necessary for a strong immune system. Clean blood assures that metabolic wastes are efficiently carried away from the tissues.

If you’re engaged in intense physical training, you’ll find the chlorophyll in chlorella to offer valuable support. When you put your body under stress, toxins and free radicals are released from your tissues. The chlorophyll in chlorella helps eliminate these waste products, and cleanses your liver, kidneys and blood. When the liver and kidneys are working more smoothly, everything else in the body works better, too.

This cleansing effect is also important if you're on any sort of low-carb diet (Atkins diet, South Beach diet, etc.) since such diets can place a heavy burden on the liver and kidneys. (Eliminating excess ketones puts your body under additional stress.)

Health Benefits of Chlorella: Removal of Toxic Metals and Pesticides One of the most important benefits of chlorella is its ability to remove toxic heavy metals from your body, particularly mercury.

Mercury is one of the most prevalent toxins in your environment. It's present in toxic levels in seafood, vaccines, compact fluorescent lights and mercury fillings still used by some dentists.

Chlorella binds to mercury and helps remove it from your body, safely and naturally. It has also been shown to bind with heavy metals such as cadmium, uranium, lead and pesticides that can accumulate in your body.

Chlorella can remove other toxic chemicals such as dioxin and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), chemical compounds used in plastics, insulation, and flame retardants which can cause cancer and liver damage.)

Health Benefits of Chlorella: Protects the Liver. Studies shown that chlorella stimulates a protective effect on the liver, which supports the body's natural defenses. Chlorella lowers blood cholesterol and triglycerides, improving the function of your liver and strengthening your cardiovascular system.

Studies have been shown that most people have excessive amounts of these toxins stored in their body fat. Anyone who is trying to lose weight should be aware that these environmental toxins are released into the blood stream as fats cells are broken down. They need to be cleared from the body by a natural detoxification system such as that offered by chlorella.

Health Benefits of Chlorella: Improves Digestive System. The fibrous cell wall of chlorella helps to enhance digestion and keep the digestive tract healthy. One of the ways chlorella eases digestion is through its broad spectrum of enzymes, including pepsin and many others. Chlorella also stimulates the growth of friendly bacteria, which has the probiotic effect of strengthening your intestinal flora and help you resist diseases.

Health Benefits of Chlorella: Balancing Blood Sugar. Chlorella has been shown to normalize blood sugar and is helpful in the treatment of diabetes and hypoglycemia. Proper levels of blood sugar are necessary for normal brain function, heart function and energy metabolism. Chlorella supports and balances liver and pancreatic function; these two organs are critical in the regulation of your blood sugar.

Health Benefits of Chlorella: Preventing Cancer. Cancer cells are a normal occurrence in everyone. You normally have hundreds, maybe thousands of pre-cancerous cells in your body all the time. It's the job of your immune system to make sure these dangerous cells are found and destroyed before they can develop into full blown cancers.

This means that one of the best ways to prevent cancer is to strengthen your immune system. Chlorella will stimulate your immune system and your body's production of interferon, one of your greatest natural defenses against cancer.

When your immune system is strengthened, your body is able to fight off cancer as well as defend itself against viruses, bacteria, chemicals, and foreign proteins. Chlorella's potent cancer-fighting abilities include its ability to repair damage to DNA and influence gene expression.

Genes have to be "turned on" or activated before they can be expressed. If your DNA become damaged by free radicals, it could activate bad genes that would otherwise lay dormant.

Adding Chlorella to Your Diet

Chlorella is a Whole Food. Think of chlorella as a nutrient-dense green food, rather than a nutritional supplement. The more of it you can fit into your diet, the better. Start out with about a half-teaspoon a day and work up to a tablespoon or more — you can't eat too much.

One teaspoon of chlorella powder has the nutritional value of 2 or 3 servings of vegetables! This is a great way to ensure that you get the benefits of dark green vegetables daily.

I personally use chlorella (and spirulina) daily, simply because because there's no other food that's so rich in phytonutrients. If you don't eat many dark green leafy vegetables, chlorella can make up for it — and then some. Chlorella contains concentrated, easy-assimilated nutritional benefits not found in any other food.

How I Take My Chlorella. The strong algae taste of chlorella makes it challenging to find a tasty way to take it. My favorite chlorella recipe uses almond milk, a frozen banana, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves (all potent antioxidants), two raw organic eggs or protein powder, and a tablespoon of chlorella combined in a blender. Bananas seem to blend well with chlorella and take the bitterness down a bit — just make sure you use very ripe ones.

If you want to give chlorella a try, I suggest starting out with a half-teaspoon or so at first, and gradually increase the portion.

Buying Chlorella

I'd recommend getting chlorella in a bulk powder form, since you'd have to swallow more than 20 tablets or capsules a day to get the equivalent of one tablespoon of chlorella powder.

Tablets or capsules are convenient to take with you, and you can swallow them quickly to avoid the taste. They do end up costing more than twice as much as the powder, though.

The Best Chlorella? Yaeyama is a subspecies of chlorella vulgaris. It is grown in the environmentally pristine coral reef region of Japan's Ishigaki Island using mountain spring water, tropical sunshine and food grade nutrients. Yaeyama Chlorella cell walls are broken by high impact jet-spray drying that pulverizes the algae wall for increased absorption of its vital nutrients.

For price, selection and service, it's hard to beat iHerb.com. Why? Just take a look at what they have to offer:

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• Live Customer-Care Service — on the phone or live chat
• Additional Discounts — extra 5% off for orders over $60
• Rewards Program — earn store credit for referring your friends!

Other Green Superfood Options

There are other green food supplements that blend chlorella with other high-antioxidant superfoods like wheat grass, alfalfa and many others. I prefer straight chlorella myself, primarily for its detoxification and cleansing properties, but taste is important, too!

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What's your favorite way
to add chlorella to your diet?

Because chlorella is SO nutritious (it's got the benefits of 5 or 6 servings of vegetables in a single tablespoon), it's certainly worth finding a tasty recipe for it. Chlorella powder's strong algae taste can make it a challenge — have you tried? If you have, would you share it here for all my readers?