What this work is about, in plain words
What happens if laboratory mice are given a suspension of live chlorella instead of water for three weeks? The authors monitored body weight, motor activity and blood parameters.
Chlorella has long been added to the feed of farm animals, and in a number of studies it increased weight gain. But its effect on animal behavior has hardly been studied. The authors set out to assess how a chlorella suspension changes body weight, motor activity and blood parameters in mice.
The experiment included 16 male and 16 female laboratory mice. Half of the animals of each sex received, instead of water, a suspension of chlorella grown in a vortex photobioreactor for three weeks; it contained about 0.1 % dry matter. The rest drank ordinary water. All had the same feed. Motor activity was recorded around the clock by an automatic system; blood was taken at the end of the experiment.
According to the authors, females given chlorella gained weight faster after just one week and used their feed more efficiently. In males, weight hardly changed. After three weeks, the red blood cell count rose in both sexes, and hemoglobin only in females. Normal daily activity was the same in all groups. After blood sampling, the activity of control mice decreased, but not that of females that drank chlorella.
The work provides data on the effect of chlorella on animal behavior, an aspect that has been little studied.
Limitations. Small groups of animals, a short experiment and a low concentration of the alga. This is a study in mice; the conclusions do not carry over to humans or other animals.