Visiting this web site requires a newer version of Netscape Communicator.
Visit Microsoft's Web site to obtain the newest version of Internet Explorer, or visit Netscape's Web site to obtain the newest version of Netscape Communicator.
Visiting this web site without first upgrading your browser may result in unreliable behavior.
Paleobiologists, such as J. William Schop, describe how some blue-green algal species have changed little in the last few billion years. Fossils of blue-green algae from central Australia, dating back more than 3.5 billion years, reveal early forms that are quite similar to living species today.
It appears that blue-green algae achieved a sort of biological perfection—with perhaps little need to evolve—accompanied by strong protective mechanisms that minimized genetic mutations. 137
Masters of regeneration
Two studies by Devi and his team demonstrated the ability of algal diets to stimulate the regeneration of blood serum and liver proteins in rats. 140,141
Because microalgal protein is composed of shorter and less complex polypeptide chains—with an abundance of all essential amino acids—it can be more readily utilized at the cellular level. One can think of it as supplying the foundational building blocks for cellular repair in easily usable form.
Might algal diets be able to confer to other cells some aspect of protection from genetic mutations?
Researchers at the Institute of Molecular and Subcellular Biology in Slovakia found that freeze-dried Aph. flos-aquae blue-green algae demonstrated anti-mutagenic effects on bacterial cells exposed to a mutagen [a substance that disrupts DNA/RNA transcription, causing mutations] using the standard Ames test. When the algae powder was added to the cell culture at the same time as the chemical mutagen, there was no benefit. However, if the algae powder was added to the cell culture medium 2 to 24 hours before exposure to the mutagenic agent, a signifi-cant anti-mutagenic effect was evident. 142 The most intense suppression of mutagenic activity was achieved when the algae powder was mixed in the cell culture medium 24 hours before the addition of the mutagen. This suggests that the algal phytochemicals were utilized by the cell culture as a protective cellular influence rather than neutralizing the chemical mutagen directly.
Steve Gagne, a macrobiotic counselor and author of The Energetics of Food (1990), reports that "Algae are the masters of regeneration—they probably are the most highly regenerative foods on the planet." 145
In support of this empirical observation, it is noteworthy that microalgal extracts added to culture mediums dramatically increase human cell survival rates. In 1984, a U.S. Patent (no. 4,468,460) was granted to S. Kumamoto for A Method of Human Cell Culture. Described as follows: "A method of culture of human cells is disclosed which comprises effecting the cultivation in a culture medium containing an extract of microalgae…said method permitting the normal successive cultivation of human cells to be maintained efficiently without any morphological and genetic mutations over a greater number of successive generations than has hitherto been possible." 146
