If you’re a top-performing athlete, trainer, nutritionist, or simply someone who considers themselves a health-conscious individual, you’re probably already familiar with spirulina and its many benefits. For those who are just learning about spirulina for the first time, you’ve come to the right place! Spirulina is blue-green algae and one of the most powerful, nutrient-dense, plant-based sources of protein on the planet.
Fresh Alive Spirulina is one of the best sources of amino acids, antioxidants, raw vegan protein, vitamins, and essential nutrients. Everyone can benefit from raw frozen spirulina, regardless of your age or health goals. Below you’ll find a list of scientifically-backed benefits of spirulina.
Improves Athletic Performance, Muscle Strength, and Endurance
One of the key characteristics of spirulina is its ability to increase athletic performance, muscle strength, and build-up endurance. It’s the same reason why pro-athletes, trainers, and fitness gurus all choose to include fresh spirulina in their daily diet. Studies show that when paired with regular exercise, spirulina can have enhanced effects on body composition, cardiorespiratory fitness, and blood lipid profile. This is due to spirulina’s high content of essential amino acids that aid in repairing muscles, gaining muscle mass, and supporting endurance. Spirulina also has a high concentration of magnesium, calcium, and phosphorus. Those who participate in endurance sports, such as triathlons or marathons, know that these minerals can help break down fats and sugars, prevent muscle cramps, and improve athletic performance. To boost your energy levels and naturally build up your endurance, remember to add Alive Spirulina into your daily smoothies or protein shakes.
Boosts Immune System
With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the entire world became increasingly focused on building up their immune systems. While spirulina is closely associated with reaching fitness goals and improving athletic performance, it’s also important to know that this superfood can also boost your immune system. Our immune system is what helps fight off infectious disease and keep our bodies healthy. Various studies suggest that spirulina increases the production of antibodies, infection-fighting proteins, and other cells that improve immunity and help ward off infection and chronic illnesses. This means that spirulina may enhance the immune system and act as an anticancer and carcino-preventive agent.
Improves Heart Health
Nearly half of all Americans suffer from some form of heart problem, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. In fact, heart disease is still the leading cause of death in the United States. Because of this, cardiologists and medical doctors are always looking for the next best thing to help combat the high risk of heart disease across the country. Spirulina has proven to be a strong player in the game of heart health. In this research experiment, results showed that spirulina lowered LDL cholesterol in several clinical trials. In addition, scientists found that spirulina may exert a positive effect on triglycerides, HDL, total cholesterol, blood pressure, and oxidative stress markers. If you’re not a top-performing athlete, but you’d like to avoid heart disease, keep your blood pressure in check, and prevent cardiovascular disorders, consider adding Alive Spirulina to your diet.
Prevents Muscle Damage
As we’ve mentioned above, spirulina is a highly desirable addition to any athlete’s daily diet. It provides energy, boosts endurance, and builds muscle strength. The essential amino acids in spirulina are also capable of preventing muscle damage and repairing muscle lesions. There are a few specific amino acids that contribute to the strengthening of muscles and the prevention of muscle damage. Medical doctors explain that leucine, isoleucine, and valine are branched-chain amino acids that are all essential to human life. They’re also present in live spirulina. They’re needed for the physiological response to stress, in energy production, and particularly for the normalization of our metabolism, and the health of our muscles. This is why various scientific studies suggested that ingestion of spirulina can prevent skeletal muscle damage and could potentially lead to postponement of the time of exhaustion during an all-out exercise. Athletes who are preparing for marathons are highly advised to add fresh Alive Spirulina to their daily intake to protect muscles and prevent damage.
Antioxidant and Anti-inflammatory Agent
Since spirulina is considered a top superfood, it probably comes as no surprise that it also acts as a powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory agent. In addition to boosting your immune system and fighting off infectious diseases, the ingredients in spirulina also aid in fighting off cancer. One of the main active compounds found in spirulina is phycocyanin, which is what provides its strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Phycocyanin is the substance that gives spirulina that special blue-green color. Phycocyanin is used in medicine to facilitate selective destruction of atherosclerotic plaques or cancer cells by radiation with little or no damage to the surrounding cells or tissue. In other words, spirulina is found to contain cancer-fighting agents that can protect against oxidative damage.
Weight Management
When it comes to weight control, there are endless advertisements out there for magical supplements that are supposed to drastically burn body fat, curb your appetite, or boost your metabolism. The problem is that most of these “magic pills” don’t claim to do what their marketers say they do. Thankfully, there’s sufficient scientific evidence that shows adding spirulina to a healthy diet and regular exercise routine can indeed help in weight management. The majority of the current data collected shows that spirulina can aid in reducing body fat, waist circumference, body mass index, and reduce appetite. Data even shows that spirulina has significant benefits for improving blood lipids. If you’re hoping to choose an effective weight loss plan, it’s important to do it with a healthy, stable, and scientifically supported approach. Adding fresh Alive Spirulina to your daily diet can help curb cravings and keep your energy levels up so you can meet your workout goals and stay focused.
Liver Health
Despite the liver being one of our most important organs, you don’t hear people discuss liver health that often. Our liver is responsible for controlling and balancing chemicals in the blood and excrete bile, which is the process of removing harmful waste from the body. A well-functioning liver is a life source that’s essential to keeping the body healthy. A recent study conducted in Egypt found that spirulina may help to protect against liver damage, cirrhosis, and liver failure in those with chronic liver disease. Regardless if you’re suffering from liver issues or simply want to keep your liver in good health, a daily dose of spirulina can help support this vital organ.
Supports Vision
Trainers and pro-athletes may not be too concerned about maintaining eye health and vision when they’re looking to add supplements to their diet. However, without healthy vision, achieving health and fitness goals, or improving athletic performance isn’t going to happen. It’s crucial to consider the health of our eyes and vision when turning to all-natural diets. Thankfully, spirulina’s ability to protect and nurture the eye function is a huge bonus. Fresh spirulina contains a carotenoid called zeaxanthin. Zeaxanthin protects the eyes from the dangerous effects of oxidation and harmful light that can cause damage to the eyes. Researchers at Mount Sinai also found that spirulina may help reduce the risk of cataracts and age-related macular degeneration.
Anti-Aging
If you’re exhausted from trying hundreds of different supplements claiming to make you feel young and vibrant without any results, you’re not alone. The multi-billion-dollar anti-aging industry is filled with false advertisements and promises of a more youthful lifestyle. But rarely do they actually deliver on these claims. Studies show that vitamin-packed spirulina can help. Doctors explain that because spirulina acts as an anti-inflammatory agent, an auto-immune booster, and an antioxidant, it directly contributes to keeping the body energized, healthy, and prevents feelings of fatigue, illness, and depression, which can often be a result of the natural aging process.
Skin Health
Health gurus who were first attracted to spirulina for its amazing ability to improve athletic performance were pleasantly surprised to find out that spirulina is also highly beneficial for the skin. Spirulina is packed with something called tyrosine, which slows down the aging of skin cells. Fresh spirulina also contains vitamin E and selenium, which are both known for their beneficial skin effects. A study with a focus on dermatology also found that spirulina includes significant antioxidant activity, prevents viruses from entry into target cells, and inhibits the colonization of wounds by multi-resistant bacteria. Researchers also found that spirulina showed anti-cancer activity was documented in cases of oral cancer, melanoma, and UV-induced non-melanoma skin cancer.
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an inflammatory progressive, disabling autoimmune disease characterized by systemic inflammation, persistent synovitis, and production of autoantibodies. Those with rheumatoid arthritis face many challenges such as joint damage, disability, decreased quality of life, cardiovascular and other comorbidities. It also has serious physical and emotional consequences. This study concluded that spirulina is able to restrain the changes produced through adjuvant-induced arthritis. The suppressing effect of Spirulina could be attributed, at least in part, to anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and anti-angiogenic properties.
Memory
Everyone needs a little help when it comes to memory support. In our busy world filled with a constant flood of information and hectic schedules, our brains could use a boost! Studies that focus on cognitive abilities found that spirulina can aid in brain health and particularly in aiding our memory. Since spirulina protects your cognitive functioning and stimulates your brain and nervous system, it’s great for nurturing our ability to remember. Keep your physical health and your cognitive health in check by adding Alive Spirulina to your daily diet.
Cancer
Almost everyone in the world has been touched by cancer in some way. Either by experiencing a diagnosis of the disease, or having a friend or loved one fight it, cancer affects us all. As mentioned above, spirulina contains a high density of phycocyanin. It has been reported in this study that phycocyanin has an anti-oxidative function, anti-inflammatory activity, anti-cancer function, immune enhancement function, liver and kidney protection pharmacological effects. Thus, phycocyanin has an important development and utilization as a potential drug, and phycocyanin has become a new hot spot in the field of drug research. More and more studies have shown that phycocyanin has an anti-cancer effect, which can block the proliferation of cancer cells and kill cancer cells. Phycocyanin exerts anti-cancer activity by blocking the tumor cell cycle, inducing tumor cell apoptosis and autophagy, thereby phycocyanin can serve as a promising anti-cancer agent. This takes Alive Spirulina’s label as a superfood to a whole new level with current research showing its ability to fight off cancer.
Allergic Rhinitis
This double-blind, placebo-controlled study, evaluated the effectiveness and tolerability of spirulina for treating patients with allergic rhinitis. Spirulina consumption significantly improved the symptoms and physical findings compared with placebo including nasal discharge, sneezing, nasal congestion, and itching. Spirulina is clinically effective on allergic rhinitis when compared with placebo.