Editor's note: This is an article written by a "user" of ECE. He did
not put his name on it, nor did he copyright the article. We liked
his objectivity and thoroughness, so we are republishing it here
with only minor changes since the company he recommends no longer
makes the product he mentions. He still recommends the older form,
Algoran, so we had to do a tny edit.
Anti-aging super supplement from seaweed
I believe this may be the most important supplement I have ever
written about. Its potential is that extreme.
There are a ton of nutritional supplements and I'm fond of saying
that' I've never met one I didn't like. I try lots of them.
I actually have to force myself to limit my intake.
Overall I look for supplements having proof they can improve
The above are important because they can affect our overall health,
our sense of well-being, and how we look and feel compared to others
our age.
The above, in my opinion, is the essence of anti-aging. I have
to do my part by taking care of myself, but supplements can be a big
help, a real shortcut.
Supplements
A person who feels really badly because they are sick or desperately
out-of-shape usually isn't interested in anti-aging for the cosmetic
stuff, they just want to feel better.
Anti-aging cosmetic stuff is okay, but the only things or changes
that can make you genuinely look and feel better are lifestyle
changes that affect us from the inside out.
Lifestyle changes include things most
people don't want to do such as eating sensibly, exercising, and
nowadays you can add spending money on worthwhile nutritional
supplements to the list.
Supplements have grown in popularity because
-
They don't take any effort
-
There is a lot of research behind some of them.
-
The costs have
gone down.
I don't believe in taking supplements unless you do the diet and
exercise things because supplements are mainly a booster-shot to a
healthy and fit lifestyle.
Anti-aging in a capsule
I'm a proponent of the anti-aging lifestyle that includes sensible
nutrition, exercise, and supplements if you can afford them.
Antioxidants are a big part of an anti-aging strategy because they
are good for us at the cellular level, and we can easily get them
from eating fresh and natural food. And we can get them from
supplements.
Today I'm going to tell you about an antioxidant that comes from a
particular species of seaweed. This stuff has the potential to:
Some folks have said this supplement has cured some rather
significant problems. Some say it worked so fast it was like
magic. That's anecdotal evidence rather something proven in a
clinical setting, but people who get over health issues generally
don't care how the solution came about.
A very good thing about nutritional supplements in general is they
don't have adverse side effects the way drugs do.
Unique about this supplement is that it can get to cells all over
the body including the brain.
Cellular health is everything. We are made
of cells, and the more cells that are healthy the better we look
and feel, and the longer we stay alive.
If you read the two articles preceding this one you have an idea
about the role antioxidants have in health. You may also
recall that I said some antioxidants are much better than others.
This is one that I believe is in that "much better" category.
For more than five years I've performed two
online brain tests nearly every night. It only takes three
or four minutes. I had taken this supplement about two
months when one of my test scores jumped to and has remained
consistently higher than ever before. In the other test my
focus and reaction time have improved noticeably. For what
it's worth the test says my brain age is 21 (I'm 67).
Ecklonia Cava
Ecklonia Cava is a seaweed. Its
extract (ECE) contains fat-soluble polyphenols and phlorotannins.
What is important about those exotic sounding molecules is that they
are shown in much research to deliver
-
antioxidant
-
curative
-
anti-aging, and
-
health benefits.
Fat-soluble antioxidants and other molecules are significant in that
their half-lives are 12 hours. That's meaningful if they are
capable of doing the body good, because it means they can continue
working for 24 hours. Water-soluble antioxidants are good for
about one hour. That's a huge difference.
But even more valuable is that fat-soluble antioxidants can cross
the blood-brain-barrier, which means they can enter the brain and
affect the eyes and central nervous system.
The ability to cross the blood-brain barrier is
the reason some drugs and supplements are able to claim they
might improve conditions like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and
perhaps even brain lesions.
Ecklonia Cava seaweed (also called algae) grows off the coasts of
Japan, Korea, and China where people have eaten it for centuries.
So it begins life as an edible plant.
In the past decade or so much interest has focused on plants for
their health promoting potential. It is the polyphenols
(remember that word from above?) that are said to contain the potent
curative and health-promoting properties in plants. Though
most often you hear references to antioxidants rather than
polyphenols.
Antioxidant refresher
-
Raw fruits and
vegetables are better antioxidant sources than cooked and
processed food, or supplements.
-
Food is always
better than supplements.
-
Health-wise the
research points to foods closer to fresh are eons ahead of
processed, packaged, and fast food.
-
Packaged foods
can be almost devoid of nutritional benefit, and their additives
can be sources of free-radicals.
-
Antioxidant-rich fresh foods are just as
available as processed food, just not quite as easy.
A word about getting fat
Poor nutrition is one theory behind chronic overeating.
A diet of processed, packaged, and fast foods can be desperately
short on nutritional value.
Fat people obviously overeat, and generally they eat packaged,
processed, junk-type food that has lots of calories but not much
nutritional value.
In theory your body will keep telling you it is hungry if it is not
getting the nutrition it needs. That could be the reason that
fat people on bad food say they are always hungry.
Makes sense.
Super-antioxidants
There are a few antioxidants that could be called super for their
extreme antioxidant, curative, anti-aging, and health benefits.
Ecklonia Cava Extract (ECE) is
relatively new to the US, but nearly $40 Million has been spent
researching its potential.
Many health, longevity, anti-aging, and energy benefits are
attributed to plants and extracts from plants.
Getting those plant benefits by eating them is better than getting
them from supplements. But if you have to eat a massive
quantity of the plant to get the benefits, supplements begin to make
sense.
Here's the value of extracts:
Say that science discovered that a particular plant contains a
component that has curative powers. But there's just a tiny
bit of the good stuff in a pound of plant. The solution is
extracting the good stuff, but it might take a ton of plant material
to extract one pound of the super-stuff. You can imagine how
potent the extract would be, and how expensive, too.
Extracts are great because it's easier to swallow a capsule than eat
a pound of plant material. Even if a person is sick and doesn't have
an appetite they can usually choke down a capsule.
So that's why supplements usually contain plant extracts rather than
whole plants ground into powder.
Ecklonia Cava Extract
Ecklonia Cava Extract (ECE) has been
sold in the U.S. for several years, but demand has begun taking off
just recently.
I consider myself pretty much up on
supplements but it was just a few months ago that I stumbled across
ECE. I added it to my regimen almost immediately.
The growing interest in ECE has
spawned additional sellers and pushed down the price. Not long
ago the price was about three times what it is today.
ECE may become the super-supplement of this decade. It is an
impressive antioxidant, and its curative and anti-aging potential
might prove to be even more spectacular.
-
(ECE) is
extracted from seaweed (a water-based plant)
-
Polyphenols are
the wonder properties of plants.
-
The polyphenols
in Ecklonia Cava are
phlorotannins whose unique structures give them biological
abilities not found in land-based plants.
-
The ORAC value of
ECE is several times that of other antioxidants.
-
ORAC means Oxygen
Radical Absorbance Capacity and
it puts a number on an antioxidant's ability to neutralize free
radicals. More
about ORAC.
Evaluating antioxidants
An antioxidant's chemical structure
contains polyphenols that
contain phenol structures (also called rings). These look more like
stop signs that rings, but rings are what they are called and the
more rings the more capacity the antioxidant is believed to have to
absorb free radicals.
Powerful antioxidants can have four
or six rings. Ecklonia Cava Extract has eight. I've been told
that ECE has more rings than any land-based plant extract.
Comparatively speaking, Resveratrol from red grapes, an extremely
popular antioxidant said to have anti-aging powers, has a two-ring
structure.
Unique to ECE is it contains phlorotannins (also
see tannin).
It is thought that phlorotannins protect plants against ultraviolet
light, toxins, etc. that are also threats to people.
One medical practitioner that
believes in the potential of ECE is Robert J. Rowen, MD, whose article you
should read if ECE is making you curious about what it can do for
you.
Buyer beware
While researching this article I uncovered a number of things that
were disturbing. I spent my past life writing marketing
presentations and ad copy, and so I'm pretty good at spotting
marketing babble and half-truths whose purpose is to dazzle the
consumer.
But I found one product involved in hijacking another product's
webpage so a consumer clicking on a buy link ended up buying the
hijacker's product. Good grief.
If you buy supplements, performing due-diligence is important to
make sure you are buying the right stuff from a reputable source.
A major part of that is being able to interpret what is said on a
product label.
This article will give you enough
info to choose an Ecklonia Cava Extract on your own, but most of
what we'll talk about applies to any supplement so it's good stuff
to know.
Product potential
There's a ton of information and
research about ECE, but rather than bombard you with every little
detail I'm summarizing and if something piques your interest you can
follow the links or do an online search.
For starters these are some research
results from ECE:
-
Reduced the
oxidants peroxynitrite and DPPH
-
Raised HDL (the good cholesterol)
-
Stopped oxidation of LDL (bad
cholesterol)
-
Improved anti-inflammatory properties
-
Inhibited angiotensin
converting enzyme (ACE) which raises blood pressure.
-
Improved damaged
arteries
-
Increased blood flow
-
Lowered triglycerides
-
Reduced vascular inflammation
-
Kept blood from clotting (clots
cause strokes and heart attacks)
-
Prevented drowsiness while
increasing alertness
-
Sharpened memory and focus
-
Improved Post
Traumatic Stress symptoms
-
Reversed fat deposits in the liver and pancreas.
-
Inhibited beta-amyloid
(plaque) deposits in the brain
-
In a human study average weight dropped
approximately two and a half pounds in two weeks.
-
Performed equal to or better than Viagra
-
Can cause blood sugar to quickly
normalize following a glucose-spiking meal
-
Ten to 100 times stronger than antioxidant
vitamins C and E, the supplement Resveratrol, and natural foods
like blueberries, pomegranates and green tea.
ECE has been shown to benefit these conditions
It is easy to doubt that one supplement can do so much. At this
point some of the research has been with humans and much has been
with animals, which is a normal testing scenario, but I should say
that results on animals aren't guaranteed to cross over to humans.
However, Doctor Haengwoo Lee has been
involved with more ECE research than anybody, and he is convinced it
will have the same effects on humans as in animal studies.
Ecklonia Cava Extract sniff test
I could tell you
which ECE product I think you should buy, but showing you the
particulars of the products lets you control the decision
making.
But I will say
this: I almost believe that ECE is a supplement that almost
everybody should take. It looks that promising.
So what makes an
ECE product worthwhile? First of all you want
Ecklonia Cava Extract --
not the entire plant ground into powder.
ECE grows off the
coasts of Japan, Korea and China. An extraction process
gets rid of the sea water, chemicals, plant materials and other
gunk that has no value. The process yields pure Ecklonia Cava
Extract -- it's not 100 percent pure, but the best products are
more than 98 percent pure.
-
The extract
must pass tests proving it is clean and safe for human
consumption, and a legitimate brand name sold in the US is
pretty much guaranteed safe because of restrictions placed
on imports and processing facilities.
-
Asian
cultures have eaten ecklonia seaweed for centuries, and it's
probably safe to say that a family chef's food preparation
does not yield as "clean" a product as does the ECE
extraction and processing. So it's pretty safe right
out of the water.
-
The Korean
Food and Drug authorized Ecklonia Cava as a food product in
1971. Great
piece of reading. So if you think that eating
seaweed is not something you could do, think again.
What's in a label
The extracted ECE
raw material is sold in bulk to companies that can put it into
their own branded bottles or in some cases sell it to other
supplement makers.
Extraction companies and authorized resellers
have various patents and trademarks. and so you will often see
differently branded products showing the same trademarked name
in the ingredients. This happens when a company licenses
its formula and name to a reseller.
There are laws to ensure that products meet the
specs stated on their labels. So if it says "98 percent pure"
that's what it has to be. But there are some loopholes and
tricks of the trade, some of which you'll see.
The Big Two
Right now there
are two major players in the Ecklonia Cava product world.
You'll see one or both of the following names as the main
ingredient in any product containing ECE:
-
Seanol
-
Ecklonia Cava Extract
Seanol is
a registered trademark for an ECE that's used in many products
regardless of the brand name on the front of the bottle. Seanol
is just a trademarked name for an ECE product..
Ecklonia Cava Extract is
the name. Products containing this can also say anything
on the front of the bottle. Nobody has a trademark or
exclusive use of the name Ecklonia Cava Extract. It simply
is what's in the bottle.
The remainder of this article compares the above
mentioned main ingredients and demonstrates important
differences in products containing them.
Seanol
I'm pretty sure
that Seanol is the most widely-distributed ECE product in the US
today.
When you see
Seanol in the ingredients of a product it means that they get
their ECE from Simply Healthy, which owns the Seanol name and
imports the extract from a Korean extraction company (LiveChem) shipping
documents.
Any US product
using Seanol has to show the Seanol name and is not permitted to
alter the Seanol itself, but they can add other ingredients to
the capsule so that it might contain half Seanol and half
whatever.
Seanol is a formula that I'll show you in a
minute.
Ecklonia Cava Extract
There are two companies I know of that get their
ECE from a source other than the Korean extractor just noted;
they are Ford-Speranza Nutraceuticals (Canada) and Yafari
(Indiana)
You will see "Ecklonia Cava Extract" as the
ingredient of both companies' products.
Yafari owns
the brand name Yafa Cava. I don't know a whole bunch about
the Yafari company other than what they say in their marketing,
which is not very specific. Theirs was the first product I tried
and I have spoken to the owner while researching this
article. They say their product is 98
percent pure Ecklonia Cava Extract, with absolutely no
fillers. Their capsules contain 250mg ECE.
Ford-Speranza just
one ECE product presently (05/01/12) containng a mega dose of
ECE compared to all the other ECE products. Ford-Speranza
sent me its product assay and purity documents.
I don't know if Ford-Speranza and Yafari get
their Ecklonia Cava Extract from the same source. And I
have not seen assays of any products other than Ford-Speranza's
ECE.
Purity
The thing I look
for in ECE products is how much Pure Ecklonia
Cava Extract is
in one capsule.
When a bottle gives a percentage and / or says
Pure Ecklonia Cava Extract it should mean the extract has not
been cut with anything so it retains the composition as in the
lab assay.
Be advised that a
product saying 100 percent Ecklonia Cava could mean the capsule
contains all the
parts of the plant ground together -- NOT the extract. This type
of product should be labeled "complete plant."
If you see low-priced Ecklonia Cava make
sure to read the label to see what it contains. Make
sure it is pure extract.
Pure extract versus added fillers
The Seanol name on a label is supposed to be
followed by the designation P or F.
The US distributor of Seanol
says the extraction process used for its product yields a
unique polyphenol complex and a specified molecular profile
validated by HPLC
(High Performance Liquid Chromatography)
analysis. It calls this extract Seanol-P; the P
designates it as >95 percent pure phlorotannin (marine
polyphenols) extract from Ecklonia Cava algae.
They also say the
Seanol-P molecular profile is the only form of extract from
Ecklonia Cava that has been approved by the FDA as a New
Dietary Ingredient.
The above are not
my words. In my opinion it is marketing gobbledygook.
Unless it has changed
since I collected the information, Seanol-P is not available as
the sole ingredient in a capsule.
Instead Seanol-F is in
all the products showing Seanol in the ingredients -- even if
the F is missing.
This is odd, but
follow along.
Seanol-F is a blend of
two ingredients
-
13 percent Seanol-P
-
87 percent
dextrin.
Notice that Seanol-P (straight
Seanol) is the source of Ecklonia Cava Extract in Seanol-F, but
it's only 13 percent of the contents and the rest is Dextrin.
So that means if you wanted to get 100mg of
Seanol-P (their pure extract) it would require about 800mg of
Seanol-F of which the majority would be dextrin.
It seemed odd that so little Seanol-P was
going into a Seanol-F product, and so I asked why not just
sell the more potent P version.
The answer came back that the more concentrated
Seanol-P is often combined with other active ingredients to
create new formulations, and it has been added to existing
formulations to offer “new and improved” versions of those
products.
I didn't quite get that so I asked why
not just sell the P version by itself since that's the
purest version.
I was told that Seanol-P should be mixed with
other ingredients to enhance absorption.
So then I asked if there is an issue with
Seanol-P's ability to be absorbed.
I was told there is not an absorption problem.
I'll get back to this in a little while.
But it was starting to seem to me they were skimping on the more
expensive Seanol-P by adding the filler dextrin to create the
Seanol-F product, which maybe they could get away with when
there were no other ECE products being sold.
The Plot Thickens
Comparing Seanol-containing
products is easy because according to the literature they all
contain Seanol-F whose main ingredient is Seanol-P that
claims at least 95 percent pure polyphenol content containing a
complex profile of 14 distinct polyphenol molecules. What?
Tell me if I'm wrong, but isn't the above a
mouthful? It's like impossible for the layperson to interpret.
Though it might dazzle some people into thinking it must be very
important since they can't understand it.
Here's what I
find confusing. Most Seanol products have around 53mg of
ECE in one capsule while other ECE products contain 200mg and
more pure Ecklonia Cava Extract in a single capsule.
I can't say for
sure that Seanol is presented in that confusing context to
dazzle consumers, but unless I really messed up the product is
not much of a value.
One last thing.
To be fair a
number of ECE products contain added ingredients These can
start out with Seanol-F or Ecklonia Cava Extract as the main
ingredient. Added ingredients can be good when they are
known to help a particular condition. I don't believe
dextrin helps any condition.
Honest, I don't care which product you choose,
but here is an overview of what is available.
Ecklonia Cava Extract products
All of these products, I believe, are worry-free as far as being
clean and safe for human consumption, and not black-market or
counterfeit.
ECE capsules in these products
contain between 225mg and 400mg material depending on the brand.
Notice I just said they contain material not Ecklonia Cava Extract.
All these products contain some pure
Ecklonia Cava Extract though it might be known by another name on
the front of the label or in the ingredients -- Seanol, Yafa Cava,
FibroBoost, etc.
And note that the quantity of pure
ECE in a capsule does not necessarily equate with the quantity of
material in the capsule.
Some products actually have very
little pure ECE per capsule so do your due-diligence and don't just
look at the price versus the mg and number capsules in a bottle.
Alginol
From Advanced Bionutritionals
60 Capsules
400mg Seanol-F per capsule (53mg ECE)
$29.95
Free shipping
Money back guarantee
Much information available on this site. A disclaimer at
the bottom of the linked page says: "Dr.
Robert Rowen is compensated by Advanced Bionutritionals for his work
in formulating and endorsing this product." Some might view
that as a negative, but I'd say are being honest.
Genuine
Ecklonia Cava Extract
From Ford-Speranza Nutraceuticals
60 Capsules
300mg >98 percent pure Ecklonia Cava Extract per capsule
$39.95 plus shipping (discounts on quantities)
The company currently sells just this one product, but are working
on additional products for specific uses, along with a version of
the seaweed called Ecklonia Bicyclis which, according to research,
is naturally targeted to go where it is needed in the body.
There is more information on the
company website than
all the other Ecklonia Cava sellers put together.
The American distributor is
Simply the Best (the
site/page will present the newer products as they arrive).
FibroBoost
From Doctor's Best
90 Capsules
400mg Seanol=F per capsule (53mg ECE)
$33.95 plus shipping
FibroBoost®
is a licensed name / product. FibroBoost contains Seanol-F
and no other ingredients.
www.iherb.com is
a site I have used and recommended for many years. I-herb sells
everything you can imagine. Not always the lowest price, but always
close on price and their service is exceptional and it's easy to get
free shipping that usually gets from California to Ohio in two to
three days. I trust them and sometimes paying a little more is
worthwhile. This
is the I-herb link to the FibroBoost product. You
can get $5.00 off your first order by using this code HAY816
The FibroBoost name is owned by
Fibronol, LLC and is
a licensed product that can be sold by any company, but the
FibroBoost name must appear. Check next entry.
FibroBoost
From Nutricology
75 Capsules
400 mg Seanol-F (53mg ECE)
$51.45 plus
shipping from Nutricology
$26.08 plus
shipping from -- Vitacost
You can get a $10 coupon for any purchase on this site, but you will
need to send
me your email address
Note: This product contains same
ingredients as preceding Doctor's Best product, but not the same
number of capsules.
Fibronol
150 capsules
200mg Seanol plus added ingredients specific to Fibromyalgia.
$59.95 plus shipping
Lots of information on the Fibronol site that
is aimed at people having fibromyalgia, but the products (they have
several) are applicable to nearly everybody.
Same bottle is $35.18 at
this site.
You can get a $10 coupon for anything on this site, but you have to send
me your email address
Yafa
Cava
From Yafari
Ecklonia Cava Extract
30 capsules
250mg ECE per capsule
$26 plus shipping
There is not much detailed information on this site, but the owner
of the company claimed in a conversation that his product had the
most rings (9) of any he had ever seen. I can't vouch for
that, but I have no reason to think it's not accurate. Their
delivery time is very prompt and I believe they give free shipping
to first-time customers. We sent a test question to customer
service and had a response in a few hours; that's nearly unheard of
when contacting a brand these days. Unfortunately they weren't
so good after that. Yafari has several items containing ECE. Link
to Yafa Cava product.
Note: Amazon
has some good deals, but I find it a difficult site to use
because it is so vague on product descriptions (everything, not
just supplements) and they are really just taking orders for
other sellers. That
said, ten days ago it was possible to get three bottles of
Doctor's Best FibroBoost for $89.85 delivered. So I guess that
means Amazon is okay if you know what you want.
And the winner is
Ecklonia Cava
Extract from Ford-Speranza Neutraceuticals is made using a cold
water extraction process which preserves all the natural
occurring components of the raw material, and it is 98.8% pure.
I know that for a fact.
The company's
Algoran (Algoran is no longer produced, but they produce a pure
ECE instead) products also contain more pure ECE than any other
product I have seen.
For my part,
until another company proves it has something better, I will use
only Algoran (ECE) from Ford-Speranza at
www.EckloniaCava.com
For what it's
worth, this
nonprofit group in
Minnesota has a site that is worth a look for the great health
info / newsletter they provide. The sole distributor in
the US is Simply the Best (a
non profit online store).
Finally, I pay
for my Algoran (ECE), and I get zero from any Algoran (ECE)
purchases you might make. I recommend Algoran (ECE) even
though I have affiliate agreements with other websites that give
me a commission if you were to buy the other ECE brands
through links from my website. I have never told anyone to
buy anything because it will benefit me. This is no
different.
I believe Algoran
(ECE) is the best product all around. And I trust the
company, which to me is huge.
Ecklonia Cava Extract just might be the
super-supplement everybody hopes for, and you really ought to
try it and see what happens. It works fast for some, but
I'd say give it at least two months.
One thing to watch for. There are
two species of Ecklonia algae or seaweed:
-
Ecklonia Cava -- This has the
most wide-ranging potential for the healing of
degenerative diseases along with antioxidants.
-
Ecklonia Bicyclis -- contains
a greater variety of polyphenols making it even more
desirable for its antioxidant abilities and is naturally
targeted to locations needing it.
Both species in one supplement
should make for a double whammy product unlike anything yet
on the market. It is not yet available, but Ford-Speranza
is close to introducing such a supplement.
Additional Ecklonia Cava reading and
resources
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