Seaweed’s best-known benefit is that it is an amazing source of a nutrient missing in virtually every other food: iodine. Consuming healthy levels of iodine is seriously essential to keeping a healthy thyroid, a gland in your neck which helps produce and manage hormones. A malfunctioning thyroid can result in a vast array of symptoms such as tiredness, muscle weakness, and high cholesterol (among others). In severe or without treatment cases, it can result in major medical conditions like goiters (a swelling of the thyroid gland), heart palpitations, and damaged memory.
What Are the Benefits of Eating Seaweed?
Given that producers started including iodine to salt in the 1920s and the World Health Organization adopted a worldwide salt iodization program in 1993, symptoms of extreme iodine deficiency have mostly disappeared. Nevertheless, for a host of factors, including iodine-blocking chemicals in our environment, the bad quality (i.e. iodine-free) salt used in processed foods, and a basic pattern of salt-ophobia among health mindful folks, mild iodine shortage is once again ending up being progressively typical.
Digestive health
So great, in reality, that seaweed may quickly be an active ingredient in functional foods – making white bread, for example, greater in fiber. Researchers at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne have investigated alginate, a substance in brown seaweed, and discovered that it can strengthen gut mucus (which safeguards the digestive tract wall), slow down digestion (so you feel fuller for longer) and make food release its energy more slowly (ie, it is low-GI, and for that reason good). It’s likewise high in fiber. A research study of the faecal plants of Japanese women (well, someone’s got to do it) revealed that high seaweed intake enhances the good bacteria in the gut. The enzymes in kombu, which you can add in dried type to soups and stews, help pre-digest pulses, which in turn reduce wind.
For Weight Loss
You, too, may have believed, “But who can eat this stuff for breakfast?” when reading Japanese Women Don’t Get Old Or Fat, by Naomi Moriyama and William Doyle (₤12.99/$16, Vermilion), however the judicious addition of nori or wakame to a bowl of noodle soup or stir-fry will kid up only 30 additional calories or so while packing in loads of mineral and micronutrient. Nutritionist Ian Marber, of the Food Doctor clinic, says, “We don’t farm the sea, so there will be continual direct exposure to minerals” – to puts it simply, there will be a level you may not enter veggies grown in nutrient-poor soil. Arame and wakame are fantastic sources of calcium, iodine, folate and magnesium, while purple laver is especially rich in B vitamins, according to a study reported in the British Journal Of Nutrition.
For Your Heart
Wakame has been revealed to prevent hypertension in animals, according to a report in the Journal Of Nutrition. And research from Kyoto University revealed that the fibres from brown seaweed lowered blood pressure and decreased the risk of stroke in animals inclined to cardiovascular problems. However can we extrapolate from animal research studies to sushi fans? A 25-year study of the longest-lived population, the Okinawans, who have unfurry arteries, low cholesterol and low homocysteine (a heart-damaging chemical) levels, revealed that sea vegetables were amongst the seven to 10 portions of fruit and vegetables they eat daily. So they’re part of a package in Okinawa, making sea veggies a valuable addition to the much-touted variety of veggies and fruit we are informed to eat for health.
Has Sturdy Detox Properties
Spa fanatics and cellulite patients might remember being swathed in the browny green stuff, however what takes place when you eat it? A research study from McGill University in Canada showed that seaweed was fantastic for detoxing the body from the radioactive chemical strontium – undoubtedly, this is unlikely to be much of a problem unless you happen to live near a melted-down nuclear reactor (not for nothing did seaweed sales rocket in the Soviet Union post-Chernobyl).
For Hormonal Health
Seaweed is very high in lignans – these are plant substances that become phytoestrogens in the body, which help to block the chemical oestrogens that can predispose people to cancers such as breast cancer. Dr Jane Teas of Harvard University published a paper saying that kelp usage may be a factor in the lower rates of breast cancer in Japan, and she is now researching the results of seaweed as a natural replacement for HRT. Dr Kat Arney of Cancer Research UK explains that a lot of research studies have been carried out in the lab, however adds that “It’s vital to study whether sea veggies can bring advantages, and we are currently investigating whether particular vegetables can safeguard versus cancer.”
For Immune System
In Ireland and the Caribbean, seaweed-based beverages and soups are intoxicated as a routine pick-me-up, or after a health problem. Greg Lampert, director of the herbal course at the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine, says, “Kelp is used to reduce phlegm and soften hardness; it likewise promotes urination and reduces swelling.” Others assert it has stomach qualities and functions as a hangover treatment.
Matches other healthy foods
Let’s face it, you’re not going to have seaweed with a side of chips. With its strong, smoky flavour, you’re barely likely to binge on the things, either. But it matches sushi, tofu, miso soup, salads, veggie stews and stir-fries, and plates of greens. It’s probably the synergistic impacts of all those healthy components that keep Japanese women slim and the Okinawans living previous 100, as well as offering people on macrobiotic diets (which seaweed is a staple) shiny hair and glowing skin tones.
