Ecklonia Cava | A Deep Dive Into Its Effects

Some of the first research that was focused on the phlorotannin content of Ecklonia cava, revealed that they are powerfully GABAergic compounds. Dieckol in particular seems to be one of the stronger GABAergics in Ecklonia cava, which is one of the reasons why we standardized our Ecklonia cava to dieckol. The manufacturers behind a very famous Ecklonia cava product called SEANOL that has unfortunately been discontinued, performed a few human clinical trials on their product and found that it had a very positive effect on sleep. This is likely coming from the fact that dieckol, and potentially other phlorotannins, act on the BZD site of the GABA-A receptors. By activating this site, the GABA-A receptor becomes more sensitive to your body's own GABA, and to other GABAergic compounds ranging from endogenous neurosteroids to exogenous GABAergics such as lemon balm, kava, and magnolia bark. More importantly though, is that it makes you more sensitive to the GABA that’s already floating around in your brain, thereby producing a significant relaxing effect.

If you aren’t totally familiar with what GABA is, then here is a quick breakdown. GABA belongs to a class of neurotransmitters called the ‘amino acid neurotransmitters’. The two most notable ones being GABA and glutamate, which interestingly have directly opposing effects. GABA is classified as being ‘inhibitory’ meaning that it helps dampen neurological circuits. Glutamate on the other hand is classified as being ‘excitatory’, meaning that it helps amplify neurological circuits. To simplify this even further, glutamate is often regarded as being the “gas pedal” while GABA is often regarded as being the “brakes”. So, GABAergic activity helps slow down your brain. This is obviously very beneficial when you are trying to fall asleep, and due to this, the most commonly used agents for inducing sleep, are GABAergics. Since the dieckol in Ecklonia cava is quite strongly GABAergic, it helps slow everything down which helps you fall asleep quicker whilst also oftentimes providing a slight uptick in deep sleep.

Increased GABAergic activity can also be very beneficial during the day as it can help slow down your thoughts, and help you calm down during stressful or chaotic scenarios. The research in Korea mostly focused on Ecklonia cava’s sleep benefits, but during our bioassaying of Ecklonia cava, we’ve found it to be wonderful for taking the edge off during the day! This especially rings true if you already have other GABAergics in your stack, because Ecklonia cava can potentiate them quite a bit. Both Paul (Owner of Nootropics Depot) and myself (Emiel, author of this blog), have noted this on two separate occasions. For myself, I had taken two capsules of Ecklonia cava earlier in the day, and then a few hours later I treated myself to a nice beer on a sunny patio. Normally, a single beer would basically be unnoticeable for me in terms of effects, but this time it hit me much harder than usual and really caught me off guard. A few days later, Paul had taken Ecklonia cava earlier in the day, and then prepared a normal dose of traditional kava. The kava hit him WAY harder than usual. I’ve also found that when I add a single capsule of Ecklonia cava to my stack which contains a few GABAergics, I feel much more calm than I normally do.

Another interesting effect that I’ve noticed, is that it either takes some time for the effects of Ecklonia cava to build up, or you kind of have to become aware of the effects first somehow. Now I understand, this sounds about as pseudoscientific as you can get, but hear me out for a sec, and maybe you’ll understand where I’m coming from! The first time I took a single capsule of Ecklonia cava, I didn’t feel a thing. The next time, I took two capsules, and again I didn’t feel much. The next day, we were going to film our Ecklonia cava release video, and I really wanted to feel the effects so I took four capsules. This time, I definitely noticed a much more pronounced calming effect, but it still wasn’t all too strong. So, right before filming the video, I decided to take another four capsules, to bring me to 8 total capsules that day. With the second four capsule dose of Ecklonia cava, I was definitely feeling the effects quite strongly but I remained very lucid and was easily able to record the new product video. I then didn’t take the Ecklonia cava for a few days while I was exploring some other things we were working on. When I did take Ecklonia cava again, I took four capsules, and it hit like a ton of bricks. I was borderline spacing out and had a much harder time focusing on my work, something that always happens to me with higher doses of GABAergics. I then dropped down to two capsules the next day, and the effects were very apparent now. The next day I dropped down to 1 capsule again, and the effects felt quite pronounced. Then when we recorded the Ecklonia cava podcast, Erika and I took two capsules in the morning, and then another two capsules when we started recording the podcast. About half way through the episode, the effects kicked in strongly for both of us, and definitely made it hard for me to keep my thoughts organized. This made me think back to when we recorded the new product release video on the beach while dealing with intense wind, while having 8 capsules of Ecklonia cava kicking around in my system. If I did that again today, with such a large dose of Ecklonia cava, all you would have seen would have been a video of me peacefully napping on the beach! So, either give Ecklonia cava some time, or take a few higher doses in order to “prime” yourself for the effects of lower doses, as odd as that may sound. Again, this is not at all scientific, but an interesting anecdote in my opinion.

Beyond its acutely noticeable GABAergic effects, Ecklonia cava also produces a plethora of other benefits. It is most famous for its ability to enhance hair growth. Ecklonia cava does this both by inhibiting the progression of androgenic hair loss, whilst also enhancing critical hair growth mechanisms. This effect seems to work both orally and topically. For now, we only have a capsule product available, but soon we will also have Ecklonia cava powder, which you could use to make a topical product for yourself. For example, dissolving some Ecklonia cava powder into a shampoo, conditioner etc.

One of the ways in which Ecklonia cava helps slow the progression of hair loss, is by downregulating an enzyme called 5-alphareductase (5-AR). 5-AR is responsible for converting testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT). For the most part, DHT is great, it enhances mood, confidence, libido and muscle mass. However, DHT can also interfere with hair follicles. High levels of DHT at the hair follicles, tends to decrease hair growth. Thus, for those of us who are experiencing androgenic hair loss, dampening DHT levels can be very beneficial. However, remember what I said earlier, DHT is also great for mood, libido, and confidence, so dropping DHT levels too much causes the opposite; lower mood, libido and confidence. This is something that is often experienced with extremely strong inhibitors of 5-AR. Ecklonia cava on the other hand takes a more gentle approach by downregulating 5-AR rather than fully inhibiting it. In practice, this seems to bring with it the positives of lowering 5-AR activity for hair loss, while not bringing the negative side effects of lowering DHT too much. This is partially why Ecklonia cava is such a popular hair loss supplement!

Beyond slowing hair loss progression, Ecklonia cava also appears to enhance hair growth via various other mechanisms. One of the more notable mechanisms is that Ecklonia cava, via its polysaccharide and phlorotannin content, can increase the proliferation of dermal papilla cells (DPC). DPCs are basically the control center of our hair follicles, and regulate the growth of our hair. More DPCs should lead to overall enhanced hair growth. However, for hair growth to occur, we also require various growth factors to be present, such as IGF-1 and VEGF. Ecklonia cava just so happens to boost the levels of both IGF-1 and VEGF! To get even more specific, Ecklonia cava has the ability to stimulate the anagen phase of hair growth. This could help trigger new hair growth in follicles that may have become stuck in the telogen phase, also known as the ‘resting phase’. Beyond these already highly comprehensive effects, Ecklonia cava has also been shown to generally increase the size and strength of hair follicles, whilst also being able to increase the regeneration of hair follicles. Combine all of the powerful effects with Ecklonia cavas remarkable ability to combat oxidative stress, and it becomes easy to see why it has gained such a large following for its hair growth potential!

A lot of the mechanisms that are behind Ecklonia cava’s ability to stimulate hair growth, also bleed into other areas. For example, Ecklonia cava’s ability to enhance IGF-1 activity is also great for promoting muscle growth, whilst its ability to strongly regulate oxidative stress helps to combat delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). These mechanisms also help enhance skin health, and this is one of the first visibly noticeable effects various customers and myself have noticed so far. One customer on reddit mentioned that their partner told them that their skin was looking fantastic after they had been taking our Ecklonia cava for about a week. Interestingly enough, the day after I had read this on reddit, I received a similar compliment from our podcast host, Erika. I personally hadn’t really noticed it, but to be honest, I’m not looking in the mirror with my glasses/contact lenses on very often so it’s something I miss quite easily myself. Beyond enhancing overall skin health, Ecklonia cava also seems to have a unique ability to protect from UV-B radiation from the sun. This allows it to act as a bit of an ‘internal sunscreen’. Paul first noticed this effect after he took a high dose of Ecklonia cava for a few days, and then sat in the sun for too long. He was fully expecting to be sunburnt, but to his surprise, he had absolutely no issues. Later, when we looked into the research, it became apparent why this was the case, as there is a decent amount of research showing that Ecklonia cava (dieckol in particular) can protect from UV-B!

As if the list of benefits couldn’t get any longer, there is one more area where Ecklonia cava seems to excel in, and that’s dialing in metabolic function. Ecklonia cava has the ability to convert low activity white adipose tissue, into the highly active brown adipose tissue. Brown adipose tissues have a high energy demand, and prefer to use lipids as their fuel source. This then ends up burning fat, and generating heat. Due to this, Ecklonia cava could also be considered to be ‘thermogenic’, which is an agent that increases body temperature by burning more calories. Beyond the thermogenic effects, Ecklonia cava also appears to have beneficial effects on glucose metabolism.

Overall, it is clear to see that Ecklonia cava is a wonderfully versatile marine supplement! There is basically something there for everyone, but we would really recommend it the most for people who want to enhance their hair quality as Ecklonia cava is very unique in its abilities there, and there isn’t much that we know of that has such prominent hair growth enhancing effects!