An anonymous commenter on this blog pointed out that Holford has some unusual ideas about chlorophyll. Holford believes that “Chlorophyll, in green plants, helps oxygenate the blood and improve energy”. Given that humans generally do a pretty good job of oxygenating our blood by breathing, this is a somewhat strange claim.
Ben Goldacre famously mocked the media nutritionist Gillian McKeith for taking a similar position: Goldacre argued that
It’s very dark in your bowels. There is no light there. Nor are there gills in your bowels. Even fish do not have gills in their bowels. Consequently the chlorophyll will not create oxygen, and even if it did, even if Dr Gillian McKeith PhD stuck a searchlight up your bum to prove a point, you would not absorb any even slightly significant amount of oxygen with your bowel.
So, I think we can agree that chlorophyll will not produce oxygen while in your bowels and – while I’m very happy to live and let live if any readers enjoy sticking torches up there – even taking this step will not let your body absorb oxygen via the bowels.
Here things get a little more complicated, though. I rather doubt whether Holford believes that chlorophyll can produce oxygen while in the human bowel. I’ve found one place where he suggests that “chlorophyll could serve to strengthen the erythropoietin in the blood”. This is an interesting claim – erythropoietin is a hormone which regulates red blood cell production, and may therefore help your blood to carry more oxygen.
All this is intriguing stuff, but as far as I can tell Holford doesn’t suggest a mechanism by which this might happen, and despite spending way too long searching through Pubmed, I can’t see any evidence that chlorophyll ‘strengthens’ (does this mean increases production of? Makes work better?) one’s erythropoietin. If eating chlorophyll did increase erythropoietin levels, there would actually be good reason for caution about how much greens you eat: too much erythropoietin may have adverse effects. However, I haven’t been able to find any evidence of chlorophyll having such effects – or even a plausible mechanism by which this might take place.
This means that – superficially – Holford’s approach is more sophisticated than McKeith’s: he offers a much more scientific-sounding explanation for how chlorophyll might oxygenate the blood. However, I haven’t been able to find any evidence that this scientific-sounding explanation is true, or even a plausible mechanism by which it might function. In other words, however scientific-sounding Holford’s explanation might be, I can’t see why it’s significantly better-justified than eating lots of cabbage and bending over in front of a searchlight.
Patrick suggests -
“chlorophyll could serve to strengthen the erythropoietin in the blood”.
Holford watch states -
“erythropoietin is a hormone which regulates red blood cell production, and may therefore help your blood to carry more oxygen….. and despite spending way too long searching through Pubmed, I can’t see any evidence that chlorophyll ‘strengthens’ one’s erythropoietin”.
You’re spending far too much time assuming Holford knows what he is talking about.
I’d suggest that he didn’t mean ‘erythropoietin’, he meant ‘erythropoiesis’.
Erythropoiesis is the development of mature red blood cells (erythrocytes).
http://www.mcl.tulane.edu/classware/pathology/Krause/Blood/EP.html
Erythropoiesis is the process that makes your red blood cells, and inadequate production of red cells will make you anaemic.
So, not only does Patrick mistakenly attribute chlorophyll as the benefit of green vegetables in preventing anaemia (its the iron and folate content, not the magnesium-containing chlorophyll that helps prevent anaemia), but also doesn’t understand biology terminology, either….
now why does he not stick to educational psychology, or whatever subject he claims to be an expert in? Its obviously not clinical nutrition.
Thanks – it’s hard to know what Holford meant, but it is quite possible that he meant erythropoiesis instead of erythropoietin. Which may mean I’ve spent ages looking for a mechanism by which chlorophyll could effect or be converted into erythropoietin, for no particular reason :(
It is hard to track this but there is an odd belief about chlorophyll and the production of blood cells in some quarters.
“Chlorophyll is identical to human blood with one exception: the center element in chlorophyll is magnesium, whereas the center element in blood is iron. Some researchers claim that chlorophyll has the ability to release magnesium from its center and absorb iron, and thus become hemoglobin. Chlorophyll literally becomes human blood. More blood means our body has more ability to disburse oxygen!
Chlorophyll not only increases oxygen levels throughout the body, including the extremities, it also releases carbon dioxide, which helps prevent disease incubation.”
Regards – Shinga
Yep, some people do have, um, ‘interesting’ ideas. It would be a bit worrying if chlorophyll did pass through your digestive system and directly into the blood stream without being broken down. Obviously, even if you were to drink human blood, this would be digested (which is why we have to go through all the hassle of blood transfusions, rather than just giving patients a pint of the red stuff to drink).
Actually, that whole article you link too is a joy – why does even very basic health advice (eat your greens) have to be dressed up in so much mumbo jumbo…