Can Seaweed Battle Cancer?

If you read my article about the health effects of ginger, you already know that I am an avid fan of sushi. Having grown up in California where sushi is commonplace and fresh fish is caught by the hour, the delicacy consisting of raw fish, rice, spices, and seaweed, is a luxury we often take for granted. While I usually drool over the ginger, fresh fish, and soy-sauce laden rice, science might be telling me to start appreciating the thin black “skin” of seaweed wrapped around them instead.

While many beachgoers and ocean swimmers get tied up or tangled in the slimy legs of seaweed, the term “seaweed” is actually a blanket word for any variety of algae formed in the sea. Algae comes in red, green, or brown and is harvested for a number of commercial uses. Besides being an additive in some products such as toothpaste, paint, or cosmetics, seaweed is also being developed as a weight-loss tool, fertilizer, as a potential biofuel, and it could be the next “superfood” if more uses are found.

In the food spectrum, seaweed is not just used to wrap sushi or cut up into Asian-style soups. Seaweed is known around the globe as a tasty treat and can be made into pasta like spaghetti in Italy or in a type of bread in Scotland.

Seaweed has been found to be a large source of iodine, an element that is necessary for the health and maintenance of the thyroid gland and when left untreated, can lead to discomfort and possibly a goiter. The strength and elasticity found in strips of this sea-faring organism is sometimes used to dress wounds and has also been documented as used in molds for dental work. Seaweed has been used in many studies hoping to find cures or lessening agents within it against diseases like tuberculosis, annoying ailments such as arthritis or tapeworms, even the common influenza has been tested with seaweed. The results of these tests have been relatively inconclusive and no generalizations could be made.

However, most of the studies in recent years that have been done regarding the effects of seaweed, are against cancer. Hoping to find the ability to shrink tumors with algae, many researchers have devoted years to observing the patterns and data surrounding this important compound.

A 2005 study conducted at the Georgia Institute of Technology found a small strain of red algae off the coast of Fiji called Callophycus serratus, that looks promising for a new, natural cure for cancer. With ten new natural compounds from the strain to work with, researchers found that some of the compounds were born antibacterial fighters and have held up in the lab against known diseases that resist antibiotics. It was said that the natural germ-killers were made by the seaweed to ward off predators and disease. Another compound was able to kill tumor cells in the lab by being able to turn on the suicide switch in the individual cells, which scientists call a head start to a new possible line of anticancer drugs. Georgia Tech biochemists insist that they are only in the “test tube level” and many more studies will be conducted.

Four years ago the researchers speculated that if the studies continue to work, that it may take at least a decade for any of these types of drugs to become available to the public. Another downside to these findings is a common one among researchers, the dosage of the drug would have to be incredibly high in order for it to work and it may do more harm than good for the patients. Another Georgia Tech biologist Mark Hay says that curing cancer is easy, but making it easier on the patient is completely different,

“We can cure cancer with a shotgun, so curing cancer is not the problem…. Curing cancer without harming patients is a whole different thing that's very difficult to figure out. Many compounds have been found to have a negative effect on cancer cells, but almost none of them have gone to market because of adverse side effects that make them unusable.”

While it may be awhile before we are able to take seaweed capsules to ward off cancer or those extra few inches around the middle, it looks like seaweed is a great source of nutrition and shouldn’t be shooed away from the table.