Marine Phytoplankton for Psoriasis and Eczema: What the Evidence Shows
If you have psoriasis or eczema and you are wondering whether marine phytoplankton helps, I will be straight with you. Phytoplankton is a food, not a treatment, and there is no sound evidence that it clears or controls either condition. Both are medical skin conditions that deserve proper care. Phytoplankton can earn a place supporting your general nutrition while you manage your skin as your GP or dermatologist advises.
A food supplement is not a medicine. Nothing on this page is intended to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure psoriasis, eczema, dermatitis or any other condition. If your skin is flaring, sore or spreading, that is a conversation for your GP, pharmacist or dermatologist, who can prescribe treatments that are actually proven to work. Phytoplankton sits alongside that care, as part of a varied diet, not in place of it.
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What the nutrition genuinely supports
Good skin starts with good nutrition, but it is worth being precise about what a small daily serving actually delivers. None of it treats a skin condition. The one nutritional draw I would actually name is its plant omega-3.
Plant omega-3, mostly EPA
Phytoplankton, particularly Nannochloropsis species, is one of the few plant sources of EPA, the long-chain omega-3 you usually only find in oily fish. Most of its omega-3 is EPA rather than DHA, which is genuinely unusual for a plant.
EFSA’s omega-3 claims need 250mg of EPA and DHA combined a day (Commission Regulation (EU) No 432/2012), and a half-teaspoon serving sits well below that. Treat it as a contribution to your omega-3 intake. No authorised claim says omega-3 treats skin, and we will not imply one.
The skin vitamins, and why we do not claim them
You will see phytoplankton credited with vitamin C for collagen, and with antioxidant vitamins C and E and selenium. At the usual half-teaspoon serving, those nutrients fall below the 15% reference intake EFSA requires for a claim, so we do not make one here. If you want those nutrients at a dose that counts, phytoplankton is not the efficient way to get them, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Why we have removed the older claims
This page used to call phytoplankton a natural anti-inflammatory that alkalises your system and clears psoriasis and eczema, backed by a handful of studies. We have taken that out, and you deserve a straight account of why.
Your body holds its own pH in a tight range whatever you eat, so a food does not alkalise you, and there is no authorised anti-inflammatory claim for phytoplankton. The notion that it slips past your digestion to reach the skin directly is simply not how absorption works.
The small studies that get passed around are early, mixed and nowhere near enough to call any supplement a treatment for psoriasis or eczema. I would rather tell you the evidence is thin than dress it up as settled and let you spend on a false promise.
What actually helps with psoriasis and eczema
Proper, prescribed care does the heavy lifting: emollients, the topical treatments your GP or dermatologist recommends, and working out your own triggers, whether that is stress, soap, heat or a particular food. If you are weighing this up against the cream you have been prescribed, the honest split is that the cream does the work and the food is just food.
Eating well supports all of that, and phytoplankton can be part of a varied diet if you want a plant source of omega-3, which you can browse in our shop. Judge it on the nutrition, not on a promise to clear your skin. If any page tells you a single supplement controls a flare on its own, I would be sceptical, and so should you.
How we have assessed this
That the body regulates its own pH, that absorption is not bypassed by digestion, and that the skin studies are too limited to support a treatment claim are established science and our reading of the evidence. Statements about what phytoplankton is and contains, including Nannochloropsis as an EPA-rich plant source, are ingredient-level facts from published analyses. You can read how we handle this in our medical review policy.
We have not attached EFSA nutrient claims to vitamins or minerals here, because at a normal serving those nutrients fall below the 15% reference intake an authorised claim requires. EPA is named as a contribution to omega-3 intake, not a heart claim, because a serving sits below EFSA’s 250mg threshold.
This page makes no claim to diagnose, treat, prevent or cure psoriasis, eczema or any disease. It is general information, not medical advice, with more on our method in our editorial policy. If your skin condition persists, see your GP or dermatologist. Last reviewed: June 2026.
Cara Hayes is an experienced natural health practitioner with a Masters in Clinical Nutrition & Dietetics from the University of Sydney. She has been writing for Plankton for Health since 2019 and contributes widely to many well-known health publications.