Weight Control
If you're watching your weight, sea vegetables could be a useful addition to your diet. They are high in fibre, contain next to no calories and provide a good balance of essential minerals.
Digestive Health
Nutrients in sea vegetables appear to cleanse the colon and improve digestion and absorption. Scientists at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne have found that alginate, the sticky starch present in brown sea vegetables, can strengthen gut mucus, slow down digestion and make food release its energy more slowly (2).
In another study comparing the faecal flora resulting from the Japanese diet with the Western diet, significantly greater numbers of beneficial oxygen-loving (aerobic) organisms were found to derive from the Japanese diet (3). This is believed to be due to the antibiotic activity of sea vegetables, which destroys harmful anaerobic bacteria.
Binding Properties
Sea vegetables are known to bind heavy metals and radioactive pollutants that are present in the environment from industry and transport and remove them from the body. Scientists at McGill Univeristy in Canada showed that sodium alginate removes the radioactive element strontium, along with heavy metals such as cadmium and lead from the system (4).
Health Protection
Several decades ago, dietary researcher Dr. Weston Price found that natives of the high Andes carried a small bag attached to their necks containing a greenish-brown substance, a quantity of which was consumed every day. This substance was sea vegetable obtained with much difficulty from coastal Indians, but which these healthy dwellers of the high Andes would not do without (5).