Fresh vs Dried Spirulina: What One Antioxidant Study Measured

Research note: This is a laboratory comparison of specific Spirulina samples. It does not show a health effect in people or establish what is true of every fresh or dried product.

What the study measured

Agustini and colleagues (2015) extracted fresh and dried Spirulina samples with ethanol and measured selected compounds, including flavonoids and phenolic acids, along with DPPH radical-scavenging activity.

What the published abstract says

The abstract's numerical flavonoid and phenolic-acid values are higher for the dried sample, while its concluding sentence says the fresh sample performed better. The abstract also reports a DPPH IC50 value without clearly presenting a fresh-versus-dried pair. Those statements do not support a simple “five times greater” headline without checking the full paper's tables and methods.

What we can conclude

This source shows that the study measured differences between particular extracts. The result should not be turned into a general claim that fresh Spirulina has five times the antioxidant activity, or into a claim about antioxidant effects in the body. The figures need reconciliation against the full paper before a comparative number is used.

Source

Agustini et al. (2015), “Comparative Study of Bioactive Substances Extracted from Fresh and Dried Spirulina sp.”