On a beautiful April day, Sun Chlorella USA president Futoshi Nakayama and his wife, Yen, took their new baby and their dog to visit the animal rescue organization The Gentle Barn. As they toured the barns, they met another family with a new baby and a little dog. And this family had an amazing story to tell . . .

A few months earlier - almost despairing - this family had approached the Gentle Barn seeking help. Their dog, Sofia, had developed a hole in her stomach after being treated with anti-inflammatory medications. No medical intervention seemed to help and they were worried they'd lose this member of their family.

Having witnessed the powerful healing power of chlorella with their own animals, The Gentle Barn advised the family to try giving her a special chlorella extract - Wakasa Gold. The family added this concentrated extract to Sofia's feeding tube. Within a day she perked up. And within a few weeks, Sofia was back at home, eating and healing.

Needless to say, the family was ecstatic to meet Futoshi and his family and to be able to thank him personally for Sun Chlorella's role in helping their little dog recover. Without the extract Sun Chlorella produces, Sofia might not have been there at all - let alone looking forward to many more years with her family.

As this family discovered, chlorella harbors inside of it a special substance. And as research over the last half a century demonstrates, this substance may be the secret ingredient to longevity and greater vitality.

For years, chlorella's ability to quickly reproduce had captured scientists' attention. In just 20 hours, it could quadruple its cells - far outpacing most organisms' rates of cell reproduction. But even more exciting, they discovered chlorella's powers extended beyond helping chlorella grow - to animals and people . . .

In 1966, Dr. Yoshio Yamagishi gave healthy 10-year-olds at the Okuno Primary School in Tokyo, Japan 2 grams of chlorella a day for 112 days. The chlorella supplementation caused the children to grow faster than their counterparts who were not taking chlorella. On average, the boys grew almost half an inch taller with over half a pound more of weight gain. And while the girls didn't grow much taller than their counterparts, they gained almost twice the weight of their counterparts who were not taking chlorella.^[1]

Bear in mind, none of the children were overweight. Their measureme-nts were considered well within the healthy range of growth. In fact they were closer to ideal development than their counterparts. As these robust school children showed, chlorella seemed to help the body mature optimally.

Initially scientists thought it was the algae's high level of protein or rich array of nutrients that contributed to this exceptional development. But then Dr. Fujimaki of the People's Scientific Research Center in Tokyo, Japan found a hot water extract of chlorella still produced the same kind of results.^[2]

As scientists from the Medical Division of Nagasaki University demonstrated, this same hot water extract promoted similar healthy growth rates in children. They gave 676 children ages 6-10 years 30 mg of chlorella extract daily. After 100 days, the children had surpassed the control group of children in both height and weight.^[3]

No longer was protein or a mineral suspected to be the factor behind the growth. Something unique was sequestered deep within chlorella.

As researchers eventually discovered, chlorella contains a particularly powerful growth factor.

Produced by both plants and animals in a variety of forms, growth factors exist everywhere. These special signal molecules rally an organism's resources and instruct living tissue to regenerate, heal, protect itself and grow. They cause plants to flourish and wounds to heal. In the human body alone, we have over a dozen different forms of these molecules that trigger rejuvenation, cellular reproduction and development.^[4]

But while similar in function and makeup to other growth factors found in nature, chlorella growth factor (CGF) stands out. Subsequent research shows how this special growth factor fosters healing in remarkable ways:
- At the Medical College at Kyushyu University, two doctors, Shioichi Hasuda and Yoshiro Mitoi had several patients for whom blood transfusions, antiobiotics and skin grafts failed to work in healing infected wounds. After giving the patients chlorella and chlorella extract, they reported signs of healing in as little as two weeks.^[5]

- With dramatic photographs, Dr. David Steenblock demonstrated how he used CGF mixed with honey and applied it to stubborn diabetic foot ulcers. Within a few days, you could see the ulcer finally healing. As Steenblock explains, mixing the CGF with honey and keeping a gauze bandage over it kept the CGF in contact with the ulcer at all times so it could stimulate the tissue to heal.^[6]Malaysian researchers demonstrated how CGF seemed to help protect skin cell cultures from UV light damage and oxidation. According to the researchers, the CGF seemed to protect the cells at the genetic level by preventing the shrinking of protective genetic material known as telomeres.^[7]

- As these examples underscore, chlorella growth factor doesn't just help children grow. Growth - in the form of cellular reproduction - is a constant part of life. It's part of our lives as we go into 30's, 40's, 50's . . . even if we make it into our second century of life. We're always building new muscles, creating new layers of skin, new blood cells, bone tissue and liver cells . . . the list goes on. Throughout our life, our cells have to produce new cells in order to regenerate damaged tissue and keep our body in working order.

As we get older, we desperately need the growth factors we produce in our own bodies help us maintain our health. But like much of the essential biochemistry that courses through our body and keeps us alive, we have a harder time producing these factors as we age. Rich in protein and nucleotides, growth factors are expensive to make.

Chlorella growth factor (CGF) offers us a way to make up this deficit.