Biofilam and mineral deficiency

What follows is an interview between Mike Adams (from Naturalnews.com) and Sergei Zimin who represented the company that was once the distributor for Biofilam (at that time called “Modifilan”) in the USA. The product he is referring to in this interview was since rebranded to Biofilam, so the following interview has been edited by Inspired Nutritionals to reflect this fact, for the sake of clarity and accuracy. All instances of “Modifilan” have been replaced with Biofilam (correct as of today, and since 2008). The interview is here divided into sections according to topic, see our other articles for the full interview.

Biofilam and mineral deficiency

Mike: Now let’s talk about some of the uses of your product — I’ve researched from many reliable sources that the levels of iodine needed in the human body are much higher than what Western medicine currently recommends.

Sergei: Ten times higher.

Mike: In fact, iodine is used in breast tissue; it’s used in prostate gland tissue. I think this is important to note that the rates of breast cancer in Japan, for example, are significantly lower than they are in the United States. This is mostly thought to be due to the consumption of two things: seaweed and green tea.

Sergei: Yes, iodine and antioxidants. The first thing that happens to a woman when she develops an iodine deficiency is a problem with her reproductive organs: breast deformation, calcification. The tissue that is supposed to be penetrated by iodine turns into a calcified, sandy looking thing. This is what shows up on the mammogram, and that’s the whole story. So again, iodine deficiency is not about lack of iodine in the thyroid only, but it’s about the results of that.

Mike: Absolutely. I think that’s very important to note, because people will tend to think that iodine is only for the thyroid, but it’s actually useful. The next thing that I wanted to mention is that most people — not only in Western society but also around the world — live in a state of chronic mineral deficiency. This is not only the macro-minerals like selenium, which is related to neurological function; zinc, which is related to immune function and healing; and calcium, which controls heart function, neurological function and brain chemistry; but also the trace minerals. Brown seaweed has all of the 72 different trace minerals typically lacking in the bodies of Western consumers. I cannot overemphasize the importance of getting trace minerals into your body, and this looks like a great way to do it. It’s certainly not the only way, but this is an excellent way.

Sergei: It’s an interesting thing that in our product — although it’s made of seaweed, which sometimes just resembles a shade of minerals — you can find some of those trace minerals that you find in seaweed under the detection limit. In our product, you can actually detect those. Speaking of selenium, manganese, and the vitamin B group, in Biofilam they are presented over the detection limit. Yes, you call them trace minerals, but in Biofilam they test in higher volume. They are still all together. They come to you not in a multivitamin pill, where you put different crystallized minerals and vitamins in one batch, but in a natural shape and form in higher volume than in regular seaweed.

Mike: Yes, that’s a great point. This is really a whole plant solution. These are not isolated components that are being combined in an artificial way. This is right out of the ocean. It’s also important to note that our blood mimics the mineral composition of ocean water.

Sergei: Yes, actually our lymph does. Human lymph and ocean water have the same chemical mineral composition. Not many people know that, actually. The juice of seaweed and human lymph are the same — if you cut your finger, and the blood dries out, there is a little yellowish crystal left behind: a scab. If you cut seaweed, it will yield exactly the same substance on the top when it dries on the leaf. In Japan, wounded soldiers were given juice of seaweed when they didn’t have enough blood i just to keep them alive for several hours before blood would arrive. Before they were fermenting seaweed there, they put it in clay or stone jars with ocean salt to break down the fibers, then they ate it. Or they just chewed on that and spit it out or sucked on the seaweed leaf. In Korea, they’re doing a better job still because they put seaweed in kimchi, where by means of fermentation they kill that fiber that we remove. But for everybody else, seaweed became a commodity, and it started to sell on the market a good fifty years ago. Everybody makes sure that they eat the whole thing when they buy it.

Mike: That seems like a really good way to release the nutrients, through fermentation.

Sergei: Yeah, and it becomes more active, but at the same time it becomes soft, like gum, so you can work through that broken cellulose. The fermented foods are great, and if somebody has the luxury of having time and the place to ferment their foods, the Kombu seaweed is one of the best substances you can ferment and eat. Eating Biofilam is probably the same as chewing on seaweed and spitting out the fibers. It doesn’t look very good, but it’s how people in, say, the Mediterranean were eating grapes up until recently. They just chewed on the grape. They suck on the juice and then spit the thing out. In Morocco, where they have oranges growing in the streets, they just bite the fruit, chew it, and spit it out. The whole thing about eating fruits, vegetables and especially roots, which are full of indigestible fibers, in the cultures of people who grow them or were exposed to them by natural default is they didn’t necessarily eat the whole thing. They just chewed on those things. The same thing is true in Japan: they fermented it or they sucked on it.

Mike: Yeah. Well, that makes sense. All they really need are the nutrients, not all the cellulose. Can you talk about the reasons people buy your product? What are they saying is their reason? Because your product has so many different uses.

Sergei: Let’s talk about results which is what they get out of this product. Reasons are a different thing. It’s all different what they see in it, but people usually get the same thing out of it. You get more energy in your day, regularity in your bathroom trips, and improvement in your skin, hair and nail conditions. These are the basic, little things that people see when they use this product for at least three to five weeks. If somebody is interested in having results beyond these obvious, simple things, if somebody is looking for our product with certain ideas in mind, usually it applies to their understanding of mineral potency. In our product at the best possible level and availability are mineral forms of seaweed. It’s thyroid support, endocrine system rehabilitation, and everything that applies to that. There are numerous health conditions that — simply based on endocrine inefficiency and thyroid inactivity — inhibit regular body functions. So to answer your question directly, people who look for this product, people who want to buy this product with certain health issues in mind, are the ones who know about mineral iodine as the only food for thyroid, everything else comes secondary. When you make your thyroid wake up again and regulate all the little glands around your body, including the pancreas, gall bladder, kidneys, adrenals, even the liver, everything will come to you naturally if you simply feed your thyroid with this. By its nature, the thyroid is fed by iodine. And we’re talking about iodine in ionic form, not liquid from a brown bottle. One that comes out of the soil with your water or in the plants you eat in your diet; in the sea water — which we can’t gulp much of anyway — and in the seafood, in fish, and in shellfish. But the largest, molecule-wise, ionic form of iodine you can find is in seaweed. Again, to eat seaweed itself is not the way to get the iodine delivered; you can’t get that much seaweed into your system because it’s full of cellulose. So, the main result people are looking for is relief from thyroid-related issues, and also the detox quality of alginates, which people have known of for a long time.