Salivary secretory immunoglobulin A secretion increases after 4-weeks ingestion of chlorella-derived multicomponent supplement in humans: a randomized cross over study.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at the intervention named in the title.

Chlorella, a unicellular green alga that grows in fresh water, contains high levels of proteins, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fibers.

Some studies have reported favorable immune function-related effects on biological secretions such as blood and breast milk in humans who have ingested a chlorella-derived multicomponent supplement.

Who Took Part

PubMed tags the participants as men only.

How the Study Was Run

The researchers set it up as a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

Because people in this study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with the intervention named in the title could be set against what happens without it.

Each person switched between the intervention named in the title and the comparison at some point, usually with a gap in between.

Before and after each trial, saliva samples were collected from a sterile cotton ball that was chewed after overnight fasting.

Salivary SIgA concentrations were measured using ELISA.

What Was Measured

Chlorella, a unicellular green alga that grows in fresh water, contains high levels of proteins, vitamins, minerals, and dietary fibers.

PubMed files the paper under topics including Chlorella, Dietary Supplements, Eating, Immunoglobulin A, Secretory and Saliva.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, placebo-controlled and crossover study.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 6 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2011 (Nutrition journal), a journal based in England.

More context: all human trials.