Algkick as food additive. The biological function of alginate is based in this context on the fact that it cannot be digested in the human intestines. Starch and in part cellulose are decomposed into sugar which passes into the blood. Alginate is not. By definition, therefore, it is dietary fibre. Thus. if alginate is administered – or in plain language – if seaweed or kelp in one form or another is eaten – with contaminated food, we can preview that the main part of the heavyited in metals will be cought by the alginate molecules and will never pass through the gut walls into our body. It would be a false conclusion to think that as alginate cannot enter into the body, it cannot influence metal ions which have already been deposited in the body tissues. It can. We know this from research on animals which have been given radioactive strontium. This is absorbed by the blood and deposited inte the skeleton, where it normally remains and bombards surrounding cells with cancerogen radiation. Each day, however some per cent or a fraction of a per cent will leave its place, enter into the blood and finally settle again at some other place in the skeleton. Here we must not forget on importance circumstande: all the fluid of salive, gastric juice, bile, pancreatic juice and intestinal juice is delivered by the blood. Together they form big quantities: each day an average of 8.2 liters is delivered to the intestine tract carrying its normal load of salts and trace elements but also its burden of undesirable heavy metals. From the guts 8 litres are reaborbed. This means that all our blood fluid passes our intestine tract at least three times a day. As the reabsorption mechanism works, the returning fluid will carry chopped nutrieny molecules and a lot of desirable ions, but also mot of the heavy metals present in the gut content – unless during the meantime we have eaten a seaweed
If we have eaten seaweed or a kelp product, the heavy metals are cleared away. Animal experiments confirm what could be expected, that the effect is strongest when the alginate is given at the same time as the strontium. In man an important problem is to save foetus and and newborn from poisoning by lead. It is interesting therefore to read about experiments with cats and strontium. When the mother was fed with a constant dose of radiostrontium the foetus received a chronic label of the nucleide which increased about ten times during the nursing period. (Stara and Waldron-Edward 1967). Sodium alginate given to six-month-old cats for three days did not change the stable strontium to calcium ratio. Weaning kittens fed for 70 days showed a reduction of 25% in the long bones and 10% in the teeth; kittens fed alginate continously for 300 days showed the greatest effect. Stable strontium to calcium values in both femurs and teeth of the latter group were lower by almost 50%-