Astaxanthin and gastric ulcers

"…Low gastric tissue antioxidant levels are believed to increase the risk of developing these painful diseases, and hence Astaxanthin was repeatedly tested for its inhibitory effect.

Although gastric ulcer treatment with Astaxanthin has been under investigation in mammals for only seven years at this writing, the encouraging results have attracted several leading research teams in Sweden, Denmark, Japan, and Korea.

The pioneers were the Scandinavians: In 1999 they published that algal cell extract-containing Astaxanthin reduces gastric inflammation and bacterial load in H. pylori-infected mice (Bennedsen et al., 1999).

They further found that these changes are associated with a shift of the T-lymphocyte response from a predominant Th1-response dominated by interferon- γ to a Th1/Th2-response with interferon- γ and interleukin-4.

Such a switch from a Th1-response to a mixed Th1 / Th2-response during an ongoing infection had not been reported previously, and proves again the tremendous potency of Astaxanthin…"