Why use chlorophyllin instead of natural chlorophyll?
A. Natural chlorophyll is very unstable, and it deteriorates very quickly after isolation and purification. With the chlorophyllin derivative, through hydrolysis and replacement of magnesium the metal ion that’s naturally found in chlorophyll with copper, you get a very stable compound that doesn’t oxidize or degrade as quickly as chlorophyll. You might think that replacing magnesium with copper would make the compounds more reactive, but the copper is very tightly bound, so it’s not available to engage in detrimental reactions. Q. Have you compared the difference in chemoprotection between the purified compound and the food in which it’s found? A. We can’t do that with fish because they are carnivores, not herbivores. They don’t digest plant material. Our human studies are all done with purified chlorophyll or chlorophyllin, not with spinach, which is rich in chlorophyll. So that experiment remains to be done. One study that we recently completed in Rod Dashwood’s lab used freeze-drie
