Suddenly drinking chlorophyll has become the new celery juice of 2021. It’s gone viral on Tik Tok and now every health food store is sold of this green plant juice. Are there benefits to drinking  chlorophyll ? Does it have any side effects ? Are you wasting your money?

Chlorophyll is a group of green pigment proteins found in plants. It is related to protoheme, the red pigment of blood. Chlorophyll is found in green leafy vegetables, some algae, wheatgrass, green tea, potatoes, and some herbs.

Some ways that chlorophyll is used are the following:

1. Drinking chlorophyll has been used for reducing colostomy odor, bad breath, constipation, hay fever, detoxification, obesity, and wound healing.
2. Intravenously, chlorophyll is used for lung cancer and pancreatitis. It is also used intravenously as a photosensitizer for the removal of nonmelanoma skin cancer.
3. Topically, chlorophyll is used for acne, genital herpes, and herpes zoster (shingles). It is also used topically as a photosensitizer for the removal of nonmelanoma skin cancer.
4. And most recently people think it alkalized your body and
According the the journal of natural medicines chlorophyll has a  POSSIBLY INEFFECTIVE and INSUFFICIENT RELIABLE EVIDENCE to RATE. Which means there is no evidence to show that it actually works for any of the purposes listed above.

In addition to the lack of evidence , we run into a major issue with absorption. It is fat soluble and similar to other products such as curcumin and vitamin D, fat soluble products are hard to absorb.

In humans, no more than about 5% of ingested chlorophyll phytol is absorbed (41908). And 95% of ingested chlorophyll phytol is excreted in the feces (41908). Which means you are spending a lot of money on your pee! The pill form of Chlorophyll supplements are actually chlorophyllin, which contains copper instead of magnesium and are water soluble.   When doses of chlorophyllin are taken, the copper can be detected in plasma, which implies absorption has occurred. However, more research is needed to understand the bioavailability and metabolism of natural chlorophylls and chlorin compounds in synthetic chlorophyllin.

The lesson here is that drinking chlorophyll is just drinking expensive piss.
And there are some possible side effects, including:

Trust your friendly Miami functional medicine sports nutritionist over Tik tok and IG every day!