Ah, stellar Stellar. You've corrected me probably, good job. I thought I remembered seeing a reference to brewer's yeast having available astaxanthin but I am probably wrong. I see that it may have been perhaps a generic reference to nutritional yeast having astaxanthin as one does, but not necessarily brewer's yeast or any other.
http://www.diamondv....et/booklet.html seems to cover a number of different yeasts used in feed supplements for food animals. Here is a quote:
Phaffia Yeast
Phaffia rhodozyma, known as Phaffia Yeast, is the latest yeast product to enter the feed industry. This yeast produces a red pigment used in trout and salmon feeds for its red pigmentation of the meat. This red pigment is a carotenoid called "astaxanthin". Phaffia yeast is more expensive than the synthetic form of the carotenoid, but limited data suggests that astaxanthin from ruptured yeast cells may be a more effective pigmentor since it is in an organic matrix.
I understand that what you are saying, Scott, does not literally imply that this is not the case but, just to be redundant, astaxanthin is a carotenoid.
Apparently Phaffia rhodozyma has been given a different name recently, Haematococcus pluvialis, as noted at
http://www.astaxanth...g/chemforms.htm Here is a quote from that site:
Why do we think natural astaxanthin may act differently from synthetic astaxanthin?
All-E isomers are the major geometric isomers in both synthetic and natural astaxanthin (Turujman et al. 1997). However, synthetic astaxanthin is produced as free (unesterified) astaxanthin in a mixture of stereoisomers: the stereoisomers (3R,3'R), (3R,3'S) and (3S,3'S) occur in a ratio of 1:2:1. Natural astaxanthin, on the other hand, is usually esterified and predominantly of (3S,3'S) configuration or, less frequently, mainly (3R,3'R) (Bernhard 1990). In Haematococcus pluvialis, astaxanthin occurs as the 3S,3'S stereoisomer and primarily as monoesters (>90%), with diesters comprising ~8% and the free molecule ~1% (Renstrøm et al. 1981). It tends to produce higher pigmentation in rainbow trout compared to synthetic astaxanthin provided at the same dietary concentration (Bowen et al., 1999).
Sorry for having jumped off the handle with the brewer's yeast claim as a source of astaxanthin. I bought many bottles of an astaxanthin supplement from red algae aquaculture some time ago and pop at least one a day, usually, 4 mg.
Why does brewer's yeast turn my pee bright yellow? I see reference at one of the sites above that astaxanthin in the right matrix does result in a yellow pigmentation so I'm currently only about 80% sure it is not in brewer's yeast at the moment but that is no confidence factor worthy of supporting my claim that brewer's yeast was a source. Do some of the B-vitamins have a yellow color? Is this any relation to a niacin flush?
Phew, got to be careful, being corrected and correcting oneself can be time consuming. I welcome it though. Thanks Stellar and Scott.