What Is The Truth About Algae Supplements?

Supplements tend to sell a lot better if they’re made from things which people have never heard of. Extract of potato doesn’t sound nearly as impressive as A. flos-aquae, which is a specialist type of algae. Of course the benefits of having a supplement made out of a product or food which you can actually recognise is that you know what’s in it. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that potatoes are safe, unless one is hurtling towards you at the speed of sound you’re unlikely to come to much harm from one. A. flos-aquae could be anything and impressive though that might initially appear, it’s also a little scary or at least it should be.

As the horse meat scandal has taught us, it’s important that we know what’s in our food and our supplements. The fact is that it might be harder to achieve than you might actually imagine. In Germany recently, A. flos-aquae has been shown to contain a toxin which could be potentially dangerous for human consumption. Each and every supplement which contained the algae was tested and each one was shown to contain the same toxic substance. Researchers are now warning against using these supplements as the risk isn’t worth any of the benefits!

This is just one more example of how important it is to know what you’re putting into your body. Yes, ingredients are written on packets now and there have never been such high health and safety measures but that doesn’t mean our systems are perfect. The fact is that there are a lot of things in supplements which we simply do not know nearly enough about. If you’re taking something with a strange substance recently found at the bottom on the sea in it, perhaps wait for some unbiased testing before you chow down!