Spirulina and Large Scale Nutritional Supplementation with Spirulina Alga (LSNS)

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Just as the commercial cultivation and marketing of Spirulina was about to start there was a international scare that Spirulina could be a cancer risk for heavy smokers. It turned out to be one of those flawed reports on a study with little significance. The controversy surrounded the beta carotene molecule and its isomers. Many scientists internationally woke up and challenged the study with the World Health Organisation in Geneva.

Back here in Tamil Nadu the Shri AMM Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre got funding, from the Department of Biotechnology, Governement of India to undertake what would be (and still is) the world’s largest feeding trail with Spirulina.

This was to me one of the most dangerous and delicate assignments we had ever undertaken. In the design of the survey we had to coordinate with the government and its Integrated Child Development Programme (consisting of over 750 anganwadi workers), 3 teams of medical doctors from 3 different organisations and many other local government functionaries, aside from the 5000 pre school children who would be eating the Spirulina for one year.

The doctors came in at the beginning middle and end of the feeding trails. There was a control group that was easier to handle. The spirulina had to be delivered and unused stock withdrawn to avoid any deterioration in quality. All aspects of Spirulina preparation were tightly controlled to avoid contamination. The combination of icing sugar, ajwain and Spirulina extruded as a noodle and pan dried at around 80 degree centigrade gave us confidence that the product would be safe and palatable while retaining all its nutrition.

All this was fine until one day we heard that a child had died in one of the villages were the feeding trial was ongoing. Senior project staff rushed to the site to meet the medical doctor in charge of the Primary Health Centre. As soon as they entered the doctor told them to relax and explained that the child had a history of ailments and its demise had nothing to do with the feeding trial.

To this day I can remember waiting with the entire project staff (more than 20 youngsters) for my colleagues to come back. Only after they explained that everything was ok did everybody leave for home.

Everything was a challenge during the project. We were gathering so much data during each round of medical examinations and we had one PC-AT to store the data in. Processing the data was to be done later. Managing the 20 plus youngsters who were fresh out of 10^th and 12^th standard, in their first job, having to use a combination of public transport for the girls and two wheelers for the boys to make pick up and delivery of the Spiru-om from the different Anganwadis, all these were social challenges.

Though it was the scariest project we ever did it gave some of the best results, by proving spirulina’s effectiveness as a beta carotene substitute.