Fucoidan is popular health food for adjuvant cancer therapy because of its antioxidant, anti-cancer (inhibiting angiogenesis of cancer cells, and inducing self-destruction of cancer cells), and anti-inflammatory properties, it has attracted widespread attention.
Do you know fucoidan benefits and side effects?
However, as of now, the relevant research is mostly limited to animals and in vitro, human research is still in its infancy, but what are the possible effects and side effects, please see the analysis report
Table of Contents
- What is fucoidan?
- What are the benefits of fucoidan?
- Are there any side effects of fucoidan?
- Where to buy high-quality fucoidan recommended by most people?
What is fucoidan?
Fucoidan is a kind of sulfated polysaccharides, which is mainly present in the extracellular matrix of algae such as brown algae and green algae. It is also a component of some marine invertebrates (such as sea urchins and sea cucumbers) one.
This polysaccharide composition was first isolated from marine brown algae in 1913 by Dr. Kylin and named “fucoidan”. Now it is uniformly named fucoidan, when he was analyzing the low incidence of cancer in Okinawa, Japan. the reason.
Numerous animal and in vitro studies have found that fucoidan has antibacterial, antioxidant, anticoagulant, antiviral, antitumor, anti-inflammatory, and other biological activities. These functional characteristics make it an ideal choice for the development of biological materials and drugs.
What are the benefits of fucoidan?
1. Beneficial colorectal cancer
Colorectal cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, is the top 3 most common cancers. It is estimated that there are about 1.2 million new cancer cases and more than 630,000 cancer deaths each year, accounting for almost 8% of all cancer deaths.
Although there are many methods for cancer detection, the overall long-term prognosis of patients undergoing surgical resection has not changed significantly in the past decade. The 5-year survival rate is about 60%, and more than half of colorectal cancers are still in the affected area or Diagnosed only at distant sites.
A prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial (6 months, 60 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer) pointed out that compared with the control group using chemical target therapy alone, if it can be used outside of chemotherapy Small-molecule fucoidan (4 g each time, twice a day) can improve disease control rate (disease control rate), but other indicators have not been significantly improved (such as overall response rate (ORR), no deterioration of survival (PFS ), overall survival rate (OS), adverse reactions (AEs) and quality of life (QOL)).
*Conclusion: For patients with metastatic colorectal cancer, if fucoidan is used in addition to target therapy, it may improve disease control rate.
2. Help to lose weight and improve obesity
Obesity (meaning body mass index (BMI) greater than 30 kg/m2) has a wide range of effects on the body system, including dyslipidemia, hypertension, sleep-disordered breathing, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, non-alcoholic fatty liver, and orthopedic diseases.
Across the world, the number of deaths related to obesity is expected to soon exceed the number of deaths related to tobacco abuse.
Due to these comorbidities, the medical costs directly related to obesity are difficult to determine, but the medical burden is conservatively estimated at approximately $150 billion per year.
An animal study (for food-borne obese rats) found that supplementation with fucoidan reduced body weight, food utilization, the relative quality of liver and epididymal fat, triglycerides, total cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein levels.
*Conclusion: Animal experiments have found that fucoidan may have a positive effect on improving obesity, but human experiments still need to be further verified.
3. Improve osteoarthritis?
Osteoarthritis is the most common joint disease and the most common cause of total hip and total knee arthroplasty.
Among adults over 60 years old, the prevalence of symptomatic knee arthritis is about 10% for men and 13% for women, and due to the aging population and the prevalence of obesity, the number of patients suffering from the disease is increasing rapidly.
Knee symptoms will vary depending on the cause of the problem. The most common symptoms are pain, stiffness, and swelling around the knee joint, which can be dull, severe, and persistent. Over time, pain symptoms may appear more frequently, Including during rest or evening.
A randomized, double-blind controlled trial (12-week, 122 patients with mild to moderate osteoarthritis) pointed out that oral fucoidan (daily dose of 300 mg) failed to produce better conditions than placebo (with Comprehensive Osteoarthritis Test measurement), and related blood measurements (cholesterol, liver function, kidney function, hematopoietic function) also did not have any clinically significant changes.
*Conclusion: Up to now, for the improvement of osteoarthritis, the use of fucoidan failed to bring obvious help.
4. Increase protection effectiveness after influenza vaccination
In the United States, Influenza virus infections cause up to 430,000 hospitalizations and 20,000 to 40,000 deaths each year, of which more than 90% of deaths occur in the elderly.
As an individual’s age increases, immune aging causes the individual’s sensitivity to the infection to increase. Compared with young people, their morbidity and mortality are higher.
Immune aging not only impairs the ability to fight off infection but also reduces the ability to protect after vaccination.
A randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study (24-week, 70-year-old influenza vaccine recipients) pointed out that oral fucoidan can significantly increase the antibody titer after vaccination compared to placebo (antibody titers) and natural killer cell activity.
*Conclusion: For the elderly with low immune function, the intake of fucoidan can increase the production of antibodies after vaccination, which may have a positive help in preventing influenza.
5. Improve skin damage caused by photoaging
Among the many factors, UV is the most well-known external factor that promotes skin aging, also known as photo-aging.
Photoaging is a process of premature skin aging. The clinical features are sunburn, wrinkles, loss of elasticity, dryness, pigmentation, and actinic keratosis, which are attributed to sustained and long-term exposure to solar ultraviolet radiation (including UVA and UVB).
Unlike sunburn and tanning reactions that take hours to days to form, photoaging takes decades.
An animal study indicated that the ingestion of small-molecule fucoidan significantly inhibited UV-induced wrinkle formation, skin edema, and neutrophil entry into photodamaged lesions compared to the uningested control group.
The underlying mechanism is related to enhancing endogenous antioxidants and inhibiting oxidative stress.
*Conclusion: Animal studies have found that small-molecule fucoidan can have a protective effect on skin aging caused by light, but human studies still need to further verify.
Are there any side effects of fucoidan?
Known studies have shown that at the appropriate dose, fucoidan is highly tolerated in the short term, and the side effects or adverse reactions that have been reported are diarrhea (especially at high doses).
Safety Precautions
1. Do not use for pregnant women, breastfeeding women, or those with poor liver and kidney function.
2. Although rare, some people have very serious allergic reactions to brown algae extracts. Generally, people who are allergic to plants such as soybeans may also be allergic to fucoidan.
3. It may have the characteristics of blood thinning, so patients with poor blood coagulation function, do not use anticoagulants, and stop using it two weeks before the operation.
4. The iodine content of brown algae is usually very high. Although the iodine content of the fucoidan extract is much less than that of seaweed itself, it is still necessary to pay attention to the groups that must limit the intake of iodine to avoid excess, such as thyroid-related diseases.
5. Cell experiments have found that fucoidan may inhibit the effect of breast cancer target drugs, which should be noted before use.
Where to buy high-quality fucoidan recommended by most people?
In recent years, food safety problems in various countries have exploded, and it is not healthy but black-hearted products that everyone spends on. Therefore, European and American products with relatively strict quality control have become popular products.
And iHerb.com is a large-scale medical cosmetics e-commerce company in the United States. It has a high satisfaction rate of 97% in the evaluation of Google customers. It provides global home delivery so that you can buy it without risking buying fakes through purchasing high-quality health products.
