Do sea moss and carrageenan have health benefits? Are there risks?

carrageenan is one of the ingredient in Tom's whitening and anti plaque toothpaste. I purchased it because of being fluoride -free but never thought that it would contain carrageenan. Is it really necessary ?

Re carrageenan, Drs. Oz and Roizin write a syndicated newspaper column re health topics, and recently discussed carrageenan. Their information was strong enough to convince me that's it's a no-no, food-grade or not. Check it out online. The newspaper in which I saw it is the Palm Beach Post.

Very interesting. Growing up along the Rhode Island seashore, we collected the plentiful seaweed known as "Irish Moss" and used it to make "blancmange" or "seaweed pudding," basically by boiling it in flavored milk, which then thickened when cooled. (You had to strain out the pieces of seaweed before the pudding cooled.) We collected only the pieces that had washed up on the sand and been there long enough to bleach out to a white color. At one time, quite a few folks did this, and I never heard of any bad effects on the digestive system. I wonder if there's a difference between the material fresh from the ocean, and that which gets commercially processed.

I had a long period of serious digestive disturbance, after a course of Levaquin - I could not tolerate any dairy at all, and once I made the correlation, I switched to soy milk, which was just as bad, and I was so depressed! Then I saw a Dr Weil post on carrageenan in soy milk, and once I switched to one that did not contain it, I was fine. It took years of probiotics to get my gut back to normal, but now I am able to pretty much eat what I want. However, I still have trouble with carrageenan, and I am hard pressed to find heavy cream (for my coffee) that does not contain it! I don't understand why heavy or whipping cream would need to be 'creamier', but Kalona is the only one I can find without it, even at the co-ops. Very disappointing.

Why do we even allow carrageenan, a possible carcinogen in out foods and nutritional supplements at all? There are totally safe substances that improve texture or thicken without causing inflamation and possibly contribute to cancer. If you're a label reader, as you should be, do yourself and your family afavor and do not buy anything with carragreenan. Caragreenan is a cheap food additive that some manufactures put into their products to save a few cents. I have a long history of ulcerative colitis and have avoided carrageenan for more than 20 years. Anyone with UC, bowel diseases of any sort, irritable bowel, or who have had family members that had colon cancer, should avoid carrageenan like the plague! One more observation, the more responsible food manufactures do not use carrageenan in there food and supplement products!

It appears that a frequent discussion on blogs is that it lowers testosterone?