The 14p supplement that can ‘treat silent killer condition' that triggers heart attack and stroke
Left untreated, the condition can increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.
1
Edible algae, including spirulina, is recognised for its high nutritional value - high in protein, B vitamins, iron, and antioxidants like phycocyanin.
In a recent study published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics, researchers investigated its effects on blood pressure (BP).
They looked at existing studies on the effects of microalgae (for example spirulina and chlorella) on BP, as well as macroalgae (for example seaweeds such as wakame or kombu).
Most studies used edible algae as supplements, while others provided algae as tablets, pills, drinks, or powder.
Daily algae intake ranged between 0.001 g and 8 g per day.
Of the 19 studies they looked at, 19 reported reductions in systolic blood pressure (SBP - the pressure in your arteries when your heart muscle contracts and pumps blood out to your body) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP - the bottom number in a blood pressure reading, representing the pressure in your arteries when your heart is resting between beats).
Microalgae was found to drive the most benefits, while macroalgae showed no significant effects.
Whole algae reduced SBP (–3.96 mmHg) and DBP (–2.82 mmHg) significantly, whereas extracts/bioactive compounds did not.
Spirulina was the most effective microalgae, reducing SBP by –5.28 mmHg and DBP by –3.56 mmHg.
Chlorella showed nonsignificant trends, and studies with algae dosage of more than 3g a day had a significant reduction in DBP (–3.05 mmHg) and SBP (–3.71 mmHg).
What is high blood pressure and what is a normal reading?
The authors cautioned excessive seaweed consumption, more than 5g a day, could pose heavy metal or iodine risks, so microalgae, such as spirulina are safer.
Overall, their results underscore the potential of whole edible microalgae as a natural, sustainable approach for BP management, complementary to existing pharmacological treatments.
Spirulina is commonly available in powder and tablet and capsule forms.
One example is Cytoplan Organic Spirulina, which offers 120 capsules for £16.80 - making it 14p a capsule.
High blood pressure damages blood vessels, making them stiff or narrow, which can lead to blockages or ruptures that cause heart attacks and strokes.
The condition is often called the "silent killer" because it has no noticeable symptoms, meaning many people don't realise they have it until serious complications arise.
diet, lack of exercise, and stress.
Find out other ways to lower blood pressure below...
How to lower blood pressure
Persistent high blood pressure (hypertension) puts extra strain on your blood vessels, heart and other organs and it can raise your risk of serious conditions like heart disease, heart attacks and stroke. Here's how to reduce it.
Reduce salt
Adults are recommended to limit their salt to 6g per day (around one level teaspoon) to avoid health consequences including high blood pressure.
The top tip is to swap out table salt, according to the Salt Substitute and Stroke Study, replacing it with a reduced sodium and added potassium alternative.
Cut down on alcohol
Excessive boozing can narrow the blood vessels, which raises the risk of hypertension.
Official drinking guidelines advise that people should not regularly drink more than 14 units a week to keep health risks from alcohol low.
Get moving
Exercise is good for the heart and the blood vessels.
Although the guidelines recommend 150 minutes of activity per week, if you're currently very inactive, just a walk to the shop every day is better than nothing, and you can work up from there.
Studies suggest that isometric exercises - when you hold the body in one position without moving, such as a wall squat or plank - are best for lowering blood pressure.
Stop smoking
Smoking cigarettes is a killer. It makes the arteries sticky and narrow, which can cause blockages.
While smoking is not a direct cause of high blood pressure, it can cause an instant rise to pressure, heart rate and reduce the amount of oxygen that gets to the body's cells.
Skip coffee
Sadly, caffeine can cause a short, but dramatic increase in your blood pressure - even if you don't have high blood pressure.
Therefore cutting back on coffee is recommended as a lifestyle tip for those with hypertension.
Lose weight
The above tips can help you to lose weight, which is beneficial because being overweight in itself is a risk factor for hypertension.
Being overweight forces your heart to work harder to pump blood around your body, which can raise your blood pressure.
The only way of knowing whether you have high blood pressure is to have a blood pressure test. All adults over 40 years old are advised to have their blood pressure checked at least every five years.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
How will you die? Scientists reveal the odds of being killed by everything from an asteroid strike to an elephant attack
From asteroid impacts to elephant attacks, there are plenty of nasty ways to die that might keep you up at night. Now, scientists have revealed just how much you need to worry about each of these potential disasters. The bad news is that death by asteroid strike is much more likely than you might have thought. According to physicists from the Olin College of Engineering, the average person is significantly more likely to be killed by a space rock than to be struck by lightning. Using the latest NASA data, physicists from the Olin College of Engineering found that there are 22,800 near-earth objects (NEOs) measuring 140 metres or larger. Assuming that an impact will kill one in 1,000 people, your odds of being dying in a collision with a space rock are one in 156,000. By contrast, the odds of being killed by a lightning strike are just one in 163,000. However, if it is any comfort, scientists say you are far more likely to be killed in a car crash long before that ever happens. Scientists have worked out exactly how likely you are to die to everything from asteroid impacts to elephant attacks. This table shows how likely these events are to happen, and how likely you are to die as a result The bad news is that you are much more likely to be killed by an asteroid impact than by a lightning strike. Although car crashes are far more deadly on average According to the researchers, each year there is a 0.0091 per cent chance that a 140-metre or larger asteroid will slam into the Earth. That means there is a staggeringly high one in 156 chance of the Earth being struck by an asteroid within any given person's lifetime. If that were to happen, the blast could be thousands of times larger than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. In the worst-case scenario, a large enough asteroid could produce global events on a civilisation-ending scale. In their pre-print paper, soon to be published in the Planetary Science Journal, the researchers write: 'The dust lofting alone has the potential, in some cases, to obscure the sun to the point of stopping photosynthesis, which would then cause a mass extinction.' However, a 140-metre asteroid might land harmlessly in the ocean and cause no deaths, or slam into a populated city and kill up to one million people. To reflect this, the researchers say that the risk of death by asteroid ranges from essentially zero to near certainty based on a number of factors. To help put the odds of an asteroid death in perspective, the researchers also worked out how likely you are to die in a host of other ways. In their study, the researchers calculated both how likely it is that these events will happen to someone in their lifetime and how likely they are to die in that scenario. Their calculations suggest that the odds of being struck by lightning are just one in 16,300, which is only fatal in around one in 10 cases. Likewise, according to a study conducted in Nepal, the odds of being attacked by an elephant are about one in 14,000. Since those attacks are fatal around two-thirds of the time, your odds of being killed by an elephant are a surprisingly high one in 21,000. This analysis also reveals that, compared to the risk of an asteroid impact, many parts of our everyday lives are absurdly dangerous. The researchers found that the average person has a roughly one in 66 chance of suffering carbon monoxide poisoning, and a one in 714 chance of dying as a result. Likewise, the flu is much more likely to kill you than an asteroid impact, lightning strike, or elephant attack. Killing roughly one in 1,000 people, the flu is about as deadly as an impact from a 140-metre asteroid, but you are almost guaranteed to catch it at some point in your life. How likely is it that someone will be killed by space junk? Researchers calculated that the chance of a piece of rocket body hitting a plane was one in 430,000 each year. Given that there are around 200 people per plane, this gives a fatality risk of one in 2,200. Previous studies have estimated a higher risk due to debris breaking up and satellites falling to Earth. The Aerospace Corporation says the risk of someone being killed by space debris while on a plane is one in 1,000. Other studies estimate that the chances of one or more people being killed on the ground by falling space debris in the next ten years is one in 10. Yet it is driving that turns out to be one of the biggest risks to our lives, with a third of people being involved in an injury-causing crash at some point in their lives. Given that those crashes are deadly in around one in 100 cases, the odds of being killed in a car crash are roughly one in 273. You are, therefore, more than 500 times more likely to be killed in a traffic accident than by a deadly asteroid. On the other hand, some seemingly terrifying risks turn out to be hardly a threat at all. Death by rabies, for example, is almost entirely preventable through a vaccine called post-exposure prophylaxis. Of the 800,000 Americans who sought treatment for rabies following an animal bite, only five died - four of whom did not seek rabies post-exposure prophylaxis treatment. Of course, these probabilities are dependent on where you live and what kind of life you lead. If you don't live near elephants or refuse to jump out of a plane, you are very unlikely to die in an elephant attack or skydiving accident. Likewise, the researchers point out that someone who regularly checks their carbon monoxide alarms has a much lower chance of being killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. The point of doing these morbid calculations is that asteroid impacts are, like rabies deaths, entirely avoidable in theory. The researchers write: 'The asteroid impact is the only natural disaster that is technologically preventable.' In 2022, NASA's DART mission showed that humanity can knock an approaching asteroid off course by hitting it with a fast-moving satellite. However, these missions require years of planning and huge amounts of investment. By comparing the risk posed by asteroids to threats we face every day, we can decide if it is worth investing millions in a new space defence program or whether we should be more worried about improving road safety. WHAT COULD WE DO TO STOP AN ASTEROID COLLIDING WITH EARTH? Currently, NASA would not be able to deflect an asteroid if it were heading for Earth but it could mitigate the impact and take measures that would protect lives and property. This would include evacuating the impact area and moving key infrastructure. Finding out about the orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass, composition and rotational dynamics would help experts determine the severity of a potential impact. However, the key to mitigating damage is to find any potential threat as early as possible. NASA and the European Space Agency completed a test which slammed a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos. The test is to see whether small satellites are capable of preventing asteroids from colliding with Earth. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) used what is known as a kinetic impactor technique—striking the asteroid to shift its orbit. The impact could change the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity, but by doing so well before the predicted impact, this small nudge will add up over time to a big shift of the asteroid's path away from Earth. This was the first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defence. The results of the trial are expected to be confirmed by the Hera mission in December 2026.
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Study shows genes contribute to chance of developing debilitating disease
A new study, DecodeME, has found significant DNA differences in people with ME / chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), offering the first robust evidence that genes contribute to developing the serious disease. Researchers identified eight distinct areas of genetic code in ME/CFS patients that are markedly different from those without the condition, primarily involving genes linked to the immune and nervous systems. At least two of the genetic signals relate to how the body responds to infection, aligning with long-standing patient reports that the onset of ME/CFS symptoms often follows an infectious illness. The findings are expected to boost credibility for ME/CFS patients, helping to rebuff the stigma and lack of belief often associated with the condition. The DecodeME study, described as the world's largest of its kind, analysed DNA samples from over 15,000 participants. The key genetic difference ME sufferers have from others – and what it means
The Independent
2 hours ago
- The Independent
Breakthrough study finds Alzheimer's could be due to this deficiency
A deficiency of the metal lithium in the body could be a key factor contributing to the development of dementia in Alzherimer's patients, a groundbreaking new study reveals. The decade-long research, published in the journal Nature, shows for the first time that lithium occurs naturally in the brain and maintains the normal function of all its major cell types, preventing nerves from degradation. Scientists from Harvard Medical School found that lithium loss in the human brain is one of the earliest changes leading to Alzheimer's, while in mice, a similar lithium depletion accelerated memory decline. A reduced lithium level was found in some cases due to the metal's impaired uptake and its binding to amyloid plaques, which are known to be smoking gun signs of Alzheimer's. Researchers also showed that a new type of lithium compound – lithium orotate – can avoid capture by amyloid plaques and restore memory in mice. In the study, scientists used an advanced type of mass spectroscopy chemical analysis method to measure trace levels of about 30 different metals in the brain and blood samples from a range of people, including cognitively healthy people, those in an early stage of dementia, and those with advanced Alzheimer's. The analysis revealed that lithium was the only metal with markedly different levels across groups, which also seemed to change at the earliest stages of memory loss. 'Lithium turns out to be like other nutrients we get from the environment, such as iron and vitamin C,' study senior author Bruce Yankner said. 'It's the first time anyone's shown that lithium exists at a natural level that's biologically meaningful without giving it as a drug,' Dr Yankner said. Although lithium compounds have been historically in use to treat a range of mental conditions like bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder, in these cases, they are given at much higher concentrations that could even be toxic to older people. Scientists have now found that lithium orotate is effective at one-thousandth this dose – enough to mimic the natural level of lithium in the brain. The latest findings with lithium orotate, however, needs to be confirmed in humans via clinical trials. Yet, researchers suspect that measuring lithium levels could help screen people for early Alzheimer's. The findings revise the theory of Alzheimer's disease, which affects nearly 400 million people worldwide, offering a new strategy for early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. Decades of studies have shown that Alzheimer's disease involves an array of brain abnormalities, including clumps of the protein amyloid beta, tangles of the protein tau, and a loss of the brain's protective protein REST. However, these abnormalities have never fully explained the condition. For instance, it remains unclear why some people with Alzheimer's-like changes in the brain never go on to develop dementia or cognitive decline. Recent treatments developed to target amyloid beta plaques also don't seem to reverse memory loss, only modestly reducing the rate of cognitive decline. Now, scientists say lithium could be the critical missing link. 'The idea that lithium deficiency could be a cause of Alzheimer's disease is new and suggests a different therapeutic approach,' Dr Yankner said. 'You have to be careful about extrapolating from mouse models, and you never know until you try it in a controlled human clinical trial... But so far the results are very encouraging,' he added.
