It offers more digestible protein than beef and veal and contains a variety of nutrients: vitamins, macro-minerals, essential fatty acids, proteins, nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), chlorophyll, …. Spirulina has only 7% fat and they are in the form of essential fatty acids that are part of the cell membrane of every cell of our body.

Among many other benefits that give the body, help control high blood sugar and cholesterol levels … can be used by those with a weak digestion and absorption and assimilation, their nutrients are easily absorbed protein … Spirulina is a key ingredient in the formula of high doses of beta carotene (pro vitamin A), chlorophyll and fatty acid GLA …

This alga has the most powerful combination of essential nutrients ever seen in any food. Spirulina has a high concentration of beta carotene, ten times more than carrots. It is the only food other than breast milk containing gamma linolenic acid (GLA) …

Iron is crucial to building a strong, paradoxically, is of the minerals most commonly found in deficiency. It is also rich in iron, magnesium and other minerals and making them easily absorbed as well, is that they are physiologically pure mineral organic and not like other iron supplements. Spirulina is one of the few plants that are sources of vitamin B12 …

Olive leaf extract is derived from the leaves of the olive tree. Recorded evidence of olive leaf’s medicinal use dates back thousands of years: it was used by ancient Egyptian and Mediterranean cultures to treat a variety of health conditions.

Active compounds

The primary medical constituents contained in unprocessed olive leaf is believed to be the antioxidant oleuropein and hydroxytyrosol, as well as several other polyphenols and flavonoids including Oleocanthal.

Nutritional and medicinal uses

Olive leaf and extracts are utilized in the complementary and alternative medicine community for its perceived ability to act as a natural pathogens killer by inhibiting the replication process of many pathogens.

Olive leaf is commonly used to fight colds and flu, yeast infections, and viral infections such as the hard-to-treat Epstein-Barr disease, shingles and herpes. Olive leaf is also good for the heart. Olive leaf has been shown to reduce low-density lipoproteins (LDL), or bad cholesterol. Researchers have found that olive leaf lowers blood pressure and increases blood flow by relaxing the arteries.

Olive leaf harbours antioxidant properties that help protect the body from the continuous activity of free radicals. Free radicals are highly reactive chemical substances that, when oxidized, can cause cellular damage if left unchecked. Some recent research on the olive leaf has shown its antioxidants to be effective in treating some tumors and cancers such as liver, prostate, and breast cancer but the research on this is preliminary.

Olive leaf can be taken as a liquid concentrate, dried leaf tea, powder, or capsule. The leaf extracts can be taken in powder, liquid concentrate, or capsule form though the fresh-picked leaf liquid extracts are quickly gaining popularity due to the broader range of healing compounds they contain.

One of the most fascinating uses of Spirulina is the effort to end world hunger. Christopher Hills was the first to recognize the incredible potential of Spirulina to solve the world hunger problem. For over 20 years he worked closely with Dr. Hiroshi Nakamura in an effort to make this solution a reality.  In their historic book, Food from Sunlight, Christopher Hills and Dr. Nakamura present a convincing case for Spirulina as the answer to world hunger. In the past ten years, through the Light Force Company, Christopher Hills has donated millions of dollars of Spirulina products to feed the hungry people around the world.

Sydney Morning Herald reported as Lindsay Brown of University of Southern Queensland saying that the anti-inflammatory properties of olive leaf extract led to weigh loss. The role of inflammation in causing fat storage is the subject of studies around the world.

So far, the study results made on rats showed and exceeded expectations.

The study was published in the American Journal of Nutrition.

Listen to this original and fascinating story, as told by the one man who started it all, Dr. Clinton H. Howard

Inspection at Dusk

“It’s as close as we will get to a miracle food,” said Mahamat Sorto, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) officer managing the green cakes cultivation project in Chad. He and other aid agencies see the plant as a possible cheap solution to global malnutrition.

Donors to the project indeed hope that spirulina, a blue-green, protein-packed algae, labelled a “wonderful future food source” 45 years ago by the International Association of Microbiology, will deliver on its promise by the time a $1.7 million USD cultivation project in Chad, funded by the European Union, ends in December 2010. We can imagine these “wonder cakes” will appeal to vegans and vegetarians the world over, as well.

The plant’s dry weight contains up to 70 percent of protein matter, based on chemical analyses from the French Oil Institute, university research laboratories in Malaysia and Bangladesh, and the Siam Algae company, a Thai commercial group. And imagine how many cow farts can be saved from cultivating and eating such a product?
Health food stores in rich countries have promoted spirulina as an energy-enhancing supplement, but it has been eaten for centuries in various parts of the world.

Easily digestible, with high protein levels, high levels of B-carotene, vitamin B12, iron and trace minerals, and the rare essential fatty acid y-linolenic acid [also called gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), or omega-6], these green cakes do sound like a wonder.

Good news for the greens: a small environmental footprint with low water needs, production could take place in salty conditions that would kill other crops, and there were no “obvious negative cultural or religious issues associated with its consumption,” finds a recent report.

One drawback. In Chad’s northern Kanem region, spirulina grower Hereta Taher told IRIN that some people found the taste jarring. “It might seem bitter at first, but you get used to it.”

The bitterness could be solved with garlic, a dash of cumin or sage, so why is it not spilling out of market stalls?

Grower Hereta Taher “Lack of political interest,” said Alessandro Manini, secretary general of the Italy-based group, “Convention for the use of food micro-algae, intergovernmental institutional spirulina programme”, which promotes using the algae to combat malnutrition.

A review of seven studies on the impact of spirulina supplements on malnourished children, by researchers at the national hospital in Niamey, capital of Niger, was published in December 2008 in the French medical journal, Revue d’Epidémiologie et de Santé Publique.

The review concluded that although spirulina had a positive impact on the children’s weight, the studies were methodologically poor and had included too few people. The authors called for a larger “double-blind controlled clinical trial” – where neither the patients nor the researchers knew which patients were given spirulina – and longer follow-up period.

“It is a miracle,” said Ousmane Issa Mara, village chief of Barkadressou in the north of Kanem region, pointing to the rain-fed oasis where spirulina typically grows. “It gives you energy. After eating spirulina cakes, our sub-prefect did not have any more health problems. It restores appetite to children who lose it.”

Barkadressou is one of 14 EU-funded sites growing spirulina near Lake Chad and in the Kanem region.

Almost one in five children measured by height, weight and arm circumference in November 2009 by Action Against Hunger, an NGO working in the region, were acutely malnourished. The governor, Djari Ngamai, told IRIN that conditions in northern Kanem, 300km north of Mao, the regional capital, were the most arid in the area.

“It is lamentable how dry and barren the area is. It borders the northern BET [Borkou, Ennedi, Tibesti] regions and shares the same agricultural conditions and difficulties.”

Algae friendly oasis in Kanem region in Chad There were 1,581 women across the country participating in the EU spirulina cultivation project, and hundreds of women in Barkadressou had been packaging spirulina as dried cakes to sell to people who drove up to six hours by car from the capital to buy it. Similar climates and conditions for growing green cakes can also be found in the Middle East and in North Africa.

Need for boosting irrigation

Village chief Mara told IRIN that Barkadressou needed a motorised pump to boost irrigation because a drought in 2009 had halted the local spirulina cottage industry. Each family sold up to 100kg in the annual harvest and the income was critical.

China and India are among the top commercial producers of spirulina, with China’s production doubling from 19,000 tons in 2003 to 41,570 tons in 2004. Yet very little was produced for humanitarian purposes.

For the study, three people with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease were treated with 4.5 grams of spirulina daily for three months. In blood tests performed at the end of the treatment period, researchers found that the patients experienced a decrease in cholesterol levels.

Marked by accumulation of fat in the liver cells, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease can lead to inflammation and scarring of the liver (and, in some cases, liver failure or cirrhosis). Often occurring in people who are overweight or obese, fatty liver has been linked to diabetes, high levels of blood fats, and insulin resistance. Research suggests that maintaining a healthy weight and getting your fill of antioxidants may help keep your liver healthy.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20370930

The study, first of its kind to show that use of olive leaf extract reduced fat storage in rats, was conducted by scientists at the University of Southern Queensland.

The researchers observed the contraction of fats in the rats on exposure to olive leaves.

The experimental evidences
The study conducted on rodents showed a reduction in the stored weight and fats in the adipose tissue.

The research, led by Lindsay Brown, professor of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Southern Queensland, involved feeding experimental rats with high carbohydrate and fat diet for eight weeks until they developed signs of metabolic disorder, including abdominal fat, fatty liver, hypertension, and impaired glucose tolerance.

The rats given coffee fortified with OLE for further eight weeks showed improved cardiovascular, liver, and metabolic signs as compared with rats fed with normal coffee.

According to Dr. Brown, the leaf extract led to the reduced weight because of its anti-inflammatory properties. The role of inflammation in causing fat storage is a subject of study amongst the researchers.

Green tea, turmeric and aspirin derivatives are thought to have a similar weight-loss effect.

OLE can be consumed in the form of tea. Five to seven ounces of water, boiled with crushed olive leaf, should be drunk five to six times a day to cure chronic diseases.

The study was partly funded by Dr Red Neutraceuticals, a Queensland company that sells OLE-fortified tea and coffee.

The firm’s biochemist, Greg Jardine, said he had observed that olive leaf extract products encouraged weight loss. Yet the results of the study on rats have exceeded expectations.

The findings of the research were published in the American Journal of Nutrition.

Major health benefits of oleuropein
Natural olive leaf extracts are the most recently identified antidotes to have gained the attention of researchers around the world.

Oleuropein, a chemical compound which forms 15 percent of the olive leaf extract, has medicinal properties and is a powerful anti-oxidant that acts both in vivo and in vitro.

This phytochemical imparts a bitter pungent taste to olive leaf, whose preparations have been claimed to strengthen the immune system.

Oleuropein has been intensively used for research because of its anti-microbial characteristics, with its anti-oxidant ability being double than that of green tea.