Below I will tell you how I found out with the help of the Internet (Russian and foreign mainly): Lactomarin gel is a hoax or a means to maintain and increase my health. I hope this “research” will help you to draw independent conclusions, and not blindly trust someone’s words - neither laudatory nor defamatory.
Along the way, I found out how much a similar product costs in the USA - this turned out to be very unexpected knowledge. I think you will be surprised too.
"Another divorce ...", or How can a person without a medical education find out the truth
"My grandmother began to use Lactomarin and a month later got pulmonary edema." "In a week, I was covered with ulcers!". “This is megaweed, comrades: gel from a simple sea kale for several thousand!” "Another divorce for pensioners and housewives" ...
Similar reviews of people about Lactomarin - a food gel from brown algae - although infrequently, are found on forums, in social networks. And even though there are many more positive ones, some of them may turn out to be custom-made (sellers-deceivers have such practice).
Negative ones can also be ordered from competitors, including doctors' reviews about Lactomarin. What should we, ordinary consumers without a medical education, do in this situation? Understand yourself.
What for? We want to be healthy, young, beautiful. And the product, according to the manufacturer and the creators, has directly impressive properties:
- improves the digestive tract: flatulence, constipation, inflammatory processes in the stomach and intestines, heaviness, discomfort in the stomach (epigastric) disappear - especially in this regard, it is useful for people after 50 years;
- positively affects general well-being - relieves chronic fatigue, weakness, increases immunity;
- lowers the level of "bad" cholesterol;
- speeds up metabolism - and this in itself is health, youth and beauty;
- stabilizes fat and carbohydrate metabolism, in connection with which (as well as with the good work of the digestive tract) there is a loss of excess weight to normal or a significant decrease in it;
- provides the body with iodine - this is a big problem in our country;
- strong antioxidant and radioprotector - protects against aging and radiation.
In addition to the above, the manufacturer claims that the benefit of Lactomarin is a record amount of vitamins, trace elements, fiber, which serves as a “broom” for our intestines.
To understand this is a blatant deception or a unique product, you need to answer only 5 questions
- Is the use of Lactomarin really possible for all these problems?
- Does the composition correspond to the declared - 100% kelp plus tasty, healthy again cumin and not a molecule of something harmful?
- What is the difference between Lactomarin and ordinary cheap seaweed, if it consists only of it? Why is the price of Lactomarin 2 orders of magnitude higher?
- Why is the gel from our Far Eastern algae better than foreign analogues (according to the manufacturers)?
- How does official (evidence-based) medicine relate to the gel? Does she approve the use of Lactomarin?
And we will start with the latter, because the overwhelming majority of advertised “panaceas” (medicines for everything) evidence-based medicine rightly rejects - they help get rid of only money.
"Another divorce"
First of all, we go to the website of the Unified Register of State Registration Certificates, because it is not worth dealing with unregistered products 100%. As it turned out, medicine does not apply directly to the gel: Lactomarin is a specialized food product for dietary therapeutic and preventive nutrition (https://portal.eaeunion.org/sites/odata/_layouts/15/Portal.EEC.Registry.UI/DisplayForm .aspx? ItemId = 10735598 & ListId = f7954aaa-b57b-429e-8f39-b7e3158c88d6).
On the website of the Register, in the gel card, we read that the product has been tested in the Test Center for Food Products "ROSTEST-Moscow" and received an expert opinion of the Research Institute of Nutrition. Simply put, the benefits and harms of Lactomarin have been evaluated by scientists and doctors. The conclusions of experts, as we understand it, confirm what is written on the product label and is given in the instructions for it. Otherwise, the manufacturer does not have the right to write about the benefits of the product.
This would be enough to close all 5 questions that we are looking for answers to. Unlike dietary supplements (and ignorant people often include Lactomarin), food products undergo detailed studies and numerous checks, especially recently. Therefore, it is no longer necessary to doubt the uniqueness of the gel.
But we, as modern consumers and taught by bitter experience, will understand to the end. It turns out that the gel was developed under the guidance of the academician, candidate of biological sciences Alexei Odints, who even defended a dissertation on new approaches in biotechnology for the production of seaweed products at the biology faculty of Moscow State University (http://www.bio.msu.ru/res/Dissertation/734 /DOC_FILENAME/Odinets_avtoreferat.pdf). The research of the gel is devoted to scientific articles - You will find links to them and other official product information.
The first conclusion. Official medicine - recommends! Doctors about Lactomarin respond very positively. The product is not just another dietary supplement, not a medicine, it is a specialized food product for dietetic nutrition.
"Another" panacea "that will save you only money"
Is the composition of the gel, in which - kelp seaweed, really possible with many problems (this is what the instruction on Lactomarin and hundreds of publications tells us about)?
Let’s go in a simple but verified way - we turn to Wikipedia, but not Russian, but English, where the information is checked not as an example to us more strictly and meticulously. If you do not speak English, Google Translator will translate the text in a very readable way.
So, the English “Wikipedia” on kelp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminaria) writes that the plant:
- the main source of iodine (for humans) necessary to maintain thyroid health;
- contains mannitol, which reduces intracranial and intraocular pressure;
- contains laminarine - a substance with high (!) antitumor activity, which is also used in the treatment of nosocomial infections resistant to antibiotics — those that a person picked up directly in the hospital;
- (and again) contains laminarine - it normalizes the metabolism in the intestine, improves the digestion of food, eliminates putrefactive phenomena in the intestine;
- relieves completely or significantly from heartburn and dyspepsia - a variety of digestive disorders;
- a source of alginate (alginic acid) - an antacid that neutralizes the excess of hydrochloric acid in the gastric juice; adsorbent with a high ability to bind heavy metals, radioactive elements (plutonium, radium, strontium, etc.), toxic substances, and then remove them from the body; In addition, alginate is a wound healing substance.
We found another detailed description of the healing properties of kelp on the website of the CyberLeninka electronic scientific library, where they publish scientific articles and monographs with the permission of the authors. It is contained in an article by scientists from the Northern State Medical University of Arkhangelsk O. G. Strusovskaya and O. V. Buyuklinskaya “Possibilities of using laminarin in medicine” (https://cyberleninka.ru/article/v/vozmozhnosti-ispolzovaniya-laminarina-v -meditsine-obzor-literatury). We will not retell the contents of the work - you can read it yourself, however, we note that the authors fully confirm everything previously said about the healing properties of kelp.
Scientists from the University of California, Berkeley, whose study was published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry in 2000, also said that kelp reduces the risk of hormone-dependent cancer.
The English Wikipedia is silent about fucoidan - another substance found in brown algae that has caused great interest of scientists around the world. This silence is understandable: studies of fucoidan are in an active stage, because the authors of the article on kelp have not yet reported anything to readers who are accustomed to trust the “public encyclopedia”.
However, the equally respected Japanese “Wikipedia” already offers us a fairly detailed description (https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ フ コ イ ダ ン) of fucoidan. Below I will give a free retelling of the most interesting points.
Fucoidan
Sulphated polysaccharide fucoidan has been studied since the 70s of the twentieth century. In 1996, the Japanese Cancer Association reported the anticancer effect of the polysaccharide, after which interest in kelp as a food product increased tremendously.
In 2002, French scientists said that fucoidan inhibits the development of cell hyperplasia (excessive formation of new cells and new tissue structures). They conducted experiments in which the anticancer properties of the polysaccharide, anti-inflammatory, anti-allergic, immunomodulating, and the ability to stimulate angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels) were manifested and confirmed.
Both French and Japanese scientists (in particular, from Kyushu University) noted the following properties of fucoidan:
- antioxidant activity;
- antibacterial effect;
- wound healing effect (for example, with a stomach ulcer);
- the ability to lower bad cholesterol.
Vitamins, minerals and another authoritative opinion
Information about vitamins, minerals in the composition of kelp can be found on thousands of sites in RuNet. However, here we went in a more complicated but reliable way.
In the USA, in 1996, American bicycle racer Lance Armstrong created a charity fund to fight cancer. And on the page of this fund I found information about kelp (http://www.livestrong.com/article/186803-liquid-kelp-health-benefits/), which in itself is indicative, because serious experts work on the materials there.
In the whole culture - vitamins A, E, K and C, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pantothenic acid, folate, choline, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium. But the main thing is iodine!
Note! 1 tablespoon of raw brown algae contains the daily rate of iodine for an adult.
Quite unexpectedly for myself, I found an article on the foundation’s website about the benefits of kelp gel over all other algal products (link above), but more on that below.
But gel is not fresh kelp. How does he act?
It is logical to assume that the effect of lactomarin should be similar to the effect of seaweed on the body.
Research (http://lech-delo.by/wp-content/uploads/arxiv/ld/lech_delo_2_(48)_2016.pdf p. 35), conducted at the Moscow Institute of Biomedical Problems at the Russian Academy of Sciences, at Riga University Clinical Hospital named after Paula Stradynya, at the Minsk Academy of Sciences of Belarus, confirmed that with a 10-day course of taking the gel in almost 80% of patients, the symptoms of the syndrome disappear functional dyspepsia - feelings of pain and burning in the epigastric region, feelings of overflow in the epigastrium, bloating, belching, nausea, general weakness, constipation, etc. This result was achieved with a minimum dose of Lactomarin - 50 grams per day.
Another study, http://vvmr.ru/archive/2015/6-2015/, conducted by a group of scientists - Odinets A.G., Orlov O.I., Ilyin V.K. and others, confirmed that the gel retains radioprotective and antioxidant properties of seaweed.
A Laktomarina conducted in the Khabarovsk branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences under the guidance of Professor V.K. Kozlov, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, showed that the gel:
- a completely natural food product;
- obtained by the method of low-temperature hydrolysis - without sterilization, preservatives;
- contains alginate, fucoidan, laminarine (I talked about their properties above);
- effective in immune disorders, iodine and iron deficiency;
- effective for violations of the digestive tract;
- effective in metabolic syndrome with impaired carbohydrate, lipid, purine metabolism and arterial hypertension.
The second conclusion. Lactomarin is really able to normalize the digestive tract, lower cholesterol, speed up metabolism, cleanse the body, provide it with trace elements and vitamins, increase immunity, protect against radiation, heavy metal poisoning.
“Simple sea kale for a thousand. There are so many fools in the country! ”
Agree. And it is still unknown which side they are on. But first things first. Now we have to find out: why is the price of Lactomarin so much higher than any other kelp product, and is gel really healthier than seaweed salad?
And along the way, we will answer the question of whether the composition of Lactomarin corresponds to the declared one, that is, it does not contain preservatives, dyes, and does not deteriorate. To find out all the above, let's see how the gel is made.
Gel production
Let's start our search with ... production of seaweed salad, with which skeptics usually compare Lactomarin. Curious material (http://www.1tv.ru/shows/dobroe-utro/otk/morskaya-kapusta-14-01-2014) on this subject can be found on the Channel One website dated January 14, 2014.
You can not even watch the video, but read its description. It says that experts call the most useful frozen kelp, in which beneficial substances are stored to the maximum. But the salad that we buy in stores, canned cabbage does not contain anything useful ...
The thing is sterilization, in which the product is heated to 120 ° C. Both iodine and vitamins, other unique substances and compounds described above, are destroyed by heat treatment. And preserves that do not sterilize are “stuffed” with preservatives, which is slightly better: they also kill all the benefits of the plant.
Is it worth rejoicing that seaweed in the form of salad and canned / preserves is inexpensive? You pay for packaging, for someone’s labor, transportation, but not for your own health.
And how is gel made from kelp?
The raw materials for the gel are mined in the Far Eastern Terney Bay. Algae is harvested in early autumn at a temperature of + 10 ° C ... 13 ° C: a feature of kelp is that the colder the water and air temperature, the more nutrients the plant accumulates. The collected algae is not dried, but aired in the cold - this is how all its benefits are preserved in the kelp.
Important! In order to turn raw materials into gel without destroying unique fucoidan, vitamins, antioxidants, amino acids, the manufacturer - Siterna - created and patented a new low-temperature technology: patent No. 2323600 “Method for the production of brown algae gel for dietary and preventive nutrition”.
Of course, the details of production are not disclosed, but the presence of a patent and numerous serious studies of the product (about them above) says: manufacturers do not lie about the safety of up to 90% of nutrients and nutrients! And this is the third conclusion.
Admittedly, liquid / semi-liquid extracts from brown seaweed are not only made by us. We will return to the American site of the LIVESTRONG.COM cancer fund. It contains material on the advantages of liquid extract over other products of seaweed.
The authors write that, in addition to a large amount of fiber, the gel contains a huge number of substances useful to humans, stored from a living plant.
How much does liquid algae cost, for example, in the USA?
Here is an example of a similar product (http://store.newwayherbs.com/kelp-atlantic-ascophyllum-nodosom-p55.aspx) - Kelp-Atlantic (Ascophyllum nodosom). Please note that it is made on the basis of alcohol, which already casts doubt on its particular usefulness, and therefore our Lactomarin immediately wins before the American "liquid seaweed".
Interesting and - unexpectedly! Now - the cost. A 2-ounce bottle (just over 50 ml is the average perfume bottle) costs $ 21.40 - about 1,300 rubles at the rate of 60 rubles per dollar. And in a jar of Lactomarin - 500 ml, i.e., 10 times more. Consequently, the price of the gel in the United States in rubles would be 13,000 rubles for 1 (!) Jar. Now you yourself can say whether the price of Lactomarin is high, which is also much more useful than foreign analogues.
The high cost is due to the complexity of the extraction, production of the product. It’s much easier to push kelp leaves into a jar, sterilize and sell: the tin is the most expensive in this case, but we buy it to throw it away.
And therefore:
The fourth and final conclusion. I think, based on my own investigation, that lactomarine is a worthy, honest and, most importantly, very useful product.