Have investigated the antioxidant and anticancer properties of Chlorella vulgaris. A recent medical study found that Chlorella helps to fight cancer. Research conducted by Azamai et al. (2009) showed that Chlorella has chemopreventive effect, with a mechanism of action by inducing apoptosis induced in rat hepatocarcinogenesis.

Additionally, lutein and zeaxanthin extracted from Chlorella cells block the growth of human colon cancer (Cha et al., 2008). These results suggested that the bioactive Chlorella xanthophylls can be functional ingredients in the prevention of cancer in humans.

In research published in 2015 showed Chlorella pyrenoidosa antitumor effects in experimental breast cancer in rats. Chlorella these antineoplastic effects were also confirmed in vitro in cells of human breast adenocarcinoma (Kubatka et al., 2015).