Potent Therapeutic Food
Food as Medicine – Part One
The International Detoxification and Chelation Clinic
Mark Sircus Ac., OMD

 

    What we need today is a potent therapeutic food, something offering a rich nutrient profile to deeply nourish our bodies, something that will help the body deal with and eliminate the unwanted poisons. Something natural that strengthens the immune system, supports cardiovascular function and healthy cholesterol, improves gastrointestinal and digestive health and enhances natural cleansing and detoxification.  We need an agent that contains a potent concentration of nutrients, amino acids, vitamins, minerals and trace elements.  It has to be very high in beta carotene and chlorophyll which will help tremendously to eliminate internal poisons, high in all the B Vitamins especially B-12, iron and trace minerals and a rare essential fatty acid like GLA. Our therapeutic food would also have to be loaded with unique phytonutrients like phycocyanin, polysaccharides and sulfolipids that enhance the immune system, possibly reducing risks of infection, cancer and auto immune disease. We would expect such a food to increase energy and alertness, while increasing resistance to disease. It would have to be a food great for people of all ages especially children. Certainly it would need to be very easy-to-digest. Because essential minerals may be missing from conventional foods grown in depleted soils our ideal food would have to provide all the minerals and trace elements to nourish and power our critical enzyme systems.

The secret is in getting your body so chemically
unloaded and nutrient primed, that it heals itself.
                                                                        Dr. Sherry Rogers

    We need a food that is not declining in nutritional value, one so strong that it can reverse (all by itself) the deficiencies in minerals and vitamins, the malnutrition that is gaining strength in the general population, which is amplified as toxicity in the environment increases.[i] The perfect therapeutic food thus would have to stimulate important parts of the immune system[ii] - bone marrow stem cells, macrophages,[iii] [iv] T-cells and natural killer cells,[v] spleen and thymus glands[vi] - all would have to show enhanced activity.[vii] Simultaneously this food would have to have the ability to generate new blood cells. While we are putting up our wish list for our super food, we might as well include in it a capacity to lower cholesterol,[viii] reduce serum LDL[ix] (Low Density Lipoproteins - the bad cholesterol) and raise HDL (High Density Lipoproteins - the good guys). Meaning our food must be effective for improving cardiovascular health. It also must promote digestion and bowel function and suppress bad bacteria like e-coli and Candida yeast and stimulates beneficial flora like lactobacillus and bifidobacteria. Healthy flora is the foundation of good health and it increases absorption of nutrients from the foods we eat.

Clinical studies have shown spirulina to be a
genuine and valuable health food for children.[x]

    Spirulina is the name of this food and until now has been completely overlooked in the chelation field. It is truly astounding that something as good, pure, potent and natural as spirulina, which holds nothing short of miraculous healing, detoxification and chelation potentials, is dismissed without thought. Even more naturally leaning physicians lean toward pharmaceutically created vitamins and minerals and overlook the best that Nature herself has to offer us in our need. (It is the intention of this essay and the IMVA to address this error and to bring this and other natural agents to the forefront of the chelation field.)   People have understood the importance of blue-green algae as a food source for at least four thousand years; Chinese herbalists have been using it to treat vitamin deficiency diseases for thousands of years. The Mayans and Aztecs regularly ate freshly harvested algae. The Kanembu natives living near Lake Johann in Chad in the deep African Sahara are still making and eating algae cakes. In the last 30 years people in the United States have just begun to explore the use of the blue-green algae as a high nutrient food.  

Spirulina brings quick recovery from malnutrition and this is crucial in chelation of autistic children. For the World Health Organization (WHO) “spirulina represents an interesting food for multiple reasons, rich in iron and protein, among others things, it is able to be administered to children without any risk. We at WHO consider it a very suitable food."[xi]

     There are many ways that spirulina helps us and has always been known to facilitate detoxification during fasting and thus it is also very useful during chelation.  One of its functions, through its high concentration of amino acids and carotenes, would be to raise glutathione levels thus reducing kidney and liver toxicity caused by the heavy metals and pharmaceutical drugs. One of the reasons that spirulina is so effective in cases of radioactivity is the discovery that it does in fact increase glutathione (GSH) levels.[xii] The influence of spirulina extracts significantly increased GSH levels compared with untreated cells according to Dr. H. Hana et al at the National Research Center in Cairo, Egypt. The GSH level of untreated cells was 6.1µg10G cells while those treated with S. plantensis and S. maxima increased the GSH level to 70.32µg10G and even higher. In other experiments where rats were exposed to fluoride, spirulina-treated animals showed a smaller increase in GSSG (reduced glutathione) in comparison with untreated animals, thereby indicating a protective effect. The GSH/GSSG ratio in blood was also decreased significantly in fluoride-exposed animals, but in the spirulina-treated group the decrease was less in comparison with the control animals.[xiii]

When glutathione is less available, then it is easier for things
 to get out of balance and the free radicals can cause more damage.
One interpretation of this finding is that children with autism would
 be less able to detoxify and eliminate these heavy metals.[xiv]
                                                                                                  Dr. Jill James

     Spirulina is ideal for both heavy metal,[xv] specifically mercury[xvi] and radioactive poisoning. Spirulina was tested by the Russians and approved in 1994, (awarded a Russian Patent) as a medical food to reduce allergic reactions from radiation sickness.[xvii] Spirulina reduced urine radioactivity levels by 50% in only 20 days. This result was achieved after giving 5 grams a day to children at the Institute of Radiation Medicine in Minsk, Belarus.[xviii] Two hundred and seventy children of Chernobyl were involved in the study and not only were radionucleides reduced by 50%, but the spirulina also had the effect of normalizing allergic sensitivities.[xix]

Spirulina, per gram, could be the most cost-effective, nutritious and
 well-rounded food on the planet, and it stores almost indefinitely.
 It contains a protein complex which is about 95 percent assimilable.
                                                                                    Dr Gabriel Cousens

   Through many actions and nutrients spirulina brings many remarkable qualities to the detoxification chelation table. From being the highest source of gamma-linolenic acid (GLA), which stimulates prostaglandins, the master hormones of the body, to it being the highest source of beta-carotene (pro- vitamin A, ten times more concentrated than carrots), one of nature’s highest source of B-12, (and very high in all the B vitamins), and the world champion for protein in the form of easily assimilated well balanced amino acids, spirulina is the food of all foods, ideally created by nature to support  and provoke detoxification as well as resupply the body with minerals during chelation. No wonder whales can sustain themselves on other strains of algae that grow in the sea.

 

Harvard University researchers used a 500% increase in
 beta carotene to change the body's chemistry to reverse cancer.[xx]

 

    Spirulina is a super food. What Is a Super food? A Super food is a rare occurrence in nature. It is when a food source is highly concentrated and loaded with a complex supply of quality nutrients. Bee Pollen is an example of a super food because Bee Pollen is the reproductive spore of the plant; it is incredibly dense with plant nutrients. The phytonutrients found in Bee Pollen number in the thousands. These include bioactive compounds like enzymes, bioflavonoids, phytosterols and carotenoids. Bee Pollen also contains free amino acids, fatty acids with a good proportion of Omega 3's, naturally chelated minerals and whole vitamin complexes.

 

Nutrient Comparison of Spirulina with Carrot

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		Spirulina		Carrot
		3 g		3 g
Vitamins
Vitamin A		15,030 IU		648 IU
Vitamin B1		73 mcg		1 mcg
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)		109 mcg		1 mcg
Vitamin B3 (niacin)		449 mcg		2 mcg
Vitamin B6		14 mcg		5 mcg
Vitamin B12		2.34 mcg		0
Folic acid (folate)		1.6 mcg		0.285 mcg
Pantothenic acid		13.8 mcg		5.7 mcg
Superoxide dimutase		2,600 units		*
Minerals
Calcium		8.8 mg		0.95 mg
Magnesium		12.8 mg		0.333 m
Iron		1.64 mg		0.018 mg
Phosphorous		30 mg		0.714 mg
Potassium		59 mg		5.5 mg
Sodium		53.2 mg		1.8 mg
Manganese		118 mcg		1.9 mcg
Zinc		53 mcg		7.6 mcg
Boron		27 mcg		*
Copper		33 mcg		*
Molybdenum		9.7 mcg		*
Selenium		12.5 mcg		0.019 mcg
Protien		1.77 g		0.35 g
Lipids		2.1 g		0.729 g
* not analyzed
Values from Cyanotech Corp. 100% Pure Hawaiian Spirulina
Values from USDA (NBD No.11130) Carrots, frozen, unprepared

 

                         

 

     The natural carotenoids of spirulina only introduce the antioxidant properties of spirulina.

 

Natural Carotenoids (per 10 Gr / % total)
Pigments	Colour	%	per 10gr	% spirulina
Carotenes	Orange	54 %	25 Mg	0.25 %
beta carotene		45%	21 Mg	0.21 %
other carotenes		9 %	4 Mg	0.04 %
Xanthophylls	Yellow	46 %	22 Mg	0.22 %
myxoxanthophyll		19 %	9 Mg	0.09 %
zeaxanthin		16 %	8 Mg	0.08 %
crytoxanthin		3 %	1 Mg	0.01 %
echinenone		6 %	3 Mg	0.03 %
other xanthophyll's

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