Astaxanthin

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The short answer

Small trials examine skin, eye, exercise, and lipid markers; robust clinical benefit is unestablished.

Evidence and scope: Mixed evidence
This status does not grade the ingredient for every goal, outcome, or person.
Important limitation: Trials are inconsistent or small, so a reliable clinically important benefit is not established.
Before deciding: Key concern: Blood-pressure or glucose medicines, anticoagulants, hormone-sensitive conditions, and shellfish/algae allergy require review.

01 / PRACTICAL GUIDE

Dose, absorption, and combinations

These are indication-specific reference or studied ranges—not a personalized prescription. Start with the objective, then check the form, label, medicines, and health conditions.

Reference range by objective

Skin outcomes4–12 mg/day in many trials

Reference or studied range—not a personalized prescription. The product label or a clinician may specify a different dose.

Dose source ↗

More is not automatically better. A clinician or product label may specify a different amount.

Absorption / solubilityFat-soluble / lipid-based

Fat-soluble or lipid-based. Absorption generally improves with a meal containing fat.

How it is commonly taken

Take with a fat-containing meal.

Do not combine casually

Blood-pressure or glucose medicines, anticoagulants, hormone-sensitive conditions, and shellfish/algae allergy require review.

Dose and use source ↗

Dose and use links lead to primary or official source material. Search links are discovery tools, not proof that every returned paper applies.

02 / EVIDENCE

What the research says

We keep supportive, mixed, negative, safety, and contextual findings together. The headline never replaces the underlying papers.

1research papers in this ledger

7unique primary studies represented

280unique participants represented

These are audited counts for this JIVANA collection, not search-result totals. Participants are counted once when multiple papers use the same cohort; review papers are not added again to participant totals.

Open the research timelineResearch timeline

Entries are ordered by publication year. A study period appears only when the source reports it.

2015

Does not support the tested claimPMID 25995739

Astaxanthin supplementation, lipids, and glucose

Astaxanthin did not significantly change total, LDL, or HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, or glucose. The small dataset and surrogate outcomes leave broader clinical claims unsupported.

Published: 2015n=280 participants7 primary studies represented

Study design and methods

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of 7 randomized trials with 10 treatment arms
Population: 280 participants in randomized metabolic-marker trials
Intervention: Astaxanthin supplementation versus control
Outcome: Total, LDL, and HDL cholesterol, triglycerides, and glucose

Open research record ↗

Unscreened discovery appendix—not evidence105 candidate publicationsSearch run: Aug 21, 2026

Complete for the displayed PubMed query at the search timestamp—not for all databases or every possible synonym. Candidates can be irrelevant, duplicate the same study, or report negative findings. They are never summed as evidence or participants until screened.

03 / SOURCES

Start with the source material

Official evidence overviewPubMed bounded human-evidence search Live PubMed discovery searchNational Library of Medicine

The live search is for discovery only. Search-result counts change and are not included in the audited totals above.

Recent PubMed discovery recordsDirect links to the first 12 records returned by the reproducible search. These are discovery candidates—not reviewed summaries or a count of supportive findings.

04 / EXPERT CONTEXT

Expert context—not evidence

Expert positions are dated context—not scientific evidence. They never raise the evidence status or become consensus by repetition.

No direct, source-verified endorsement is currently recorded. Research authorship or discussion alone is not treated as endorsement.