Possible. I hadn’t even considered micro plastics. I had naively assumed that algae would be grown in farming ponds and didn’t think about real-world environmental toxins. I was more considering that algae has been promoted as a bulk food source (for some nutrients — I’m picturing the blue oatmeal from The Matrix) and I can’t remember it being tested for longevity.
I was more concerned with two possibilities (neither with a paper as background):
when I have glycine or taurine/etc by itself, I have a “flush” or some kind of reaction. But when I eat a steak (with glycine in it) I don’t feel anything. There seems to be a “signalling” aspect to many of these “supplements” which have a specific impact (or you just ram a specific pathway’s constituents until you get when you want). I’d consider algae more like the steak, and less like an isolated dose of synthetic astraxanthin.
what’s in the algae? How do they make it? Is it a clean environment? Are there heavy metals? Toxic molds? Lead painted pool sides? Do they use clean water? Pesticides? Enhancers? Are the algae unhealthy and have the output of an unhealthy organism? Etc.
Sorry:addition: there seems to be an impact of pure astraxanthin which I haven’t seen in the algae derived astraxanthin. Maybe it is the same and hasn’t been tested. I’m taking 12mg per day from algae derived astraxanthin. I’ll of course let you know if I like 15% longer, but this has been in the back of my mind.
The comparison that comes to mind is: if Rapamycin wasn’t isolated and produced (or rapalogs) would it work as well to eat a pound of Easter island dirt every two weeks to get your 10mg or Rapamycin? (Kidding of course)
“The mean life span for the mice given supplementary calcium pantothenate was 653.1 days and that for the control mice was 549.8 days.” In other words, all the mice in this study were absurdly short-lived, whether they got Ca pantothenate or not. This kind of result means nothing for normally-aging mice or people.
Calcium pantothenate supplement/pantothenic acid (Vitamin B5) is a fraction of the cost of astaxanthin.
Majority of person do not have/are willing to spend $$$$ for 3 to 5 grams of oral astaxanthin per day.
Right: if you would otherwise be absurdly short-lived, like these mice (and for similar reasons — not familial hypercholesterolemia, alcohol abuse, or a nasty set of BRCA1/2 mutations), it might benefit you. “This kind of result means nothing for normally-aging mice or people.”
These results indicate that dietary synthetic astaxanthin has a better effect than natural astaxanthin on growth promotion, body color enhancement and n-3 PUFA deposition in muscle of black tiger prawn.
Diet supplementation with H. pluvialis (natural astaxanthin) enhanced the resistance to transportation stress better than synthetic astaxanthin.
