Sea cucumbers, also known as beche-de-mer, are delicacies, health boosters and maybe even a cure for impotence and they are harvested all over the world, including just south of Monterey Bay.

In traditional Chinese medicine, sea cucumbers are considered a health panacea and are used to treat kidney disorders, constipation and reproductive problems, including impotence.

The purported medicinal properties have now gained attention from the biomedical world.

Collaborative work done by scientists from China, Japan, Russia and the United States indicates that certain extracts in sea cucumbers may help stop the growth of cancer cells.

Peter Collin of Coastside Bio Resources, a pharmaceutical lab in Maine, said the cucumber's benefits have to do with glycosides -- molecules that serve as the sea cucumber's defense mechanism. In laboratory studies, he's found that their extracts inhibited cancer cell growth.

Collin and other researchers have also found promising anti-inflammatory compounds in sea cucumbers.

"All sea cucumbers' skin are full of glucosamine and chondroitin," said Collin. Both are well-known for treating arthritis.

Longevity and anti-impotence claims are less clear. While sea cucumbers have been used in traditional Chinese medical for these purposes, there isn't any clinical data to support it, according to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute.

The slimy, sausage-shaped critters form the basis of a worldwide market.

"It looks ugly, but it's very healthy seafood," said Gary Yang, of DGS, a sea cucumber processing plant in Santa Barbara. "In Asia, we've been eating sea cucumber for hundreds of years."

The Chinese call sea cucumber "haishen," which means ginseng of the sea, though their market name is beche-de-mer, in French translating to sea worm. They are eaten in soup, stirfrys and raw in sushi.

"From the nutritional viewpoint, sea cucumber is an ideal tonic food," said Dr. Subhuti Dharmananda, director of the Institute for Traditional Medicine in Portland, Ore. It's 55 percent protein, higher than almost any other food, and has only 2 percent fat.

Central California fishermen caught onto the market in the late 1970s when they realized there were local buyers out of Los Angeles Harbor, said Mike McCorkle, a trawl fisherman in Santa Barbara.

McCorkle uses a trawler to fish for the California sea cucumber, which grow up to 2 feet long.

The smaller warty sea cucumber, which lives down to 90 feet, is also harvested. But it's caught primarily by scuba or hooka -- gear that hooks up divers to an air source on land, allowing them to stay underwater longer.

After sea cucumbers are caught, they are sent to processing plants where they are gutted, boiled and dried.

The dehydrated cucumbers are shipped all over Asia, with the biggest markets in China and Korea as well as Indonesia and Japan. There are also local markets in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles.

According to Yang, the tasty delicacies sell for more than $40 per pound in Southern California, but as high as $80-100 per pound overseas.

The high value might have something to do with the acclaimed health properties of the squishy critters.

Contact C. Brooks at 429-2436 or jcopeland@santacruzsentinel.com.

Sea cucumbers

n Sea cucumbers are closely related to sea stars and sea urchins.
n They are shaped like a cucumber with a round elongated body with a mouth on one end with lots of tentacles for feeding.
n They spend their days sifting through the dirt finding small, organic particles to eat.
n Sea cucumbers can regenerate themselves. When threatened, they spit out sticky threadlike strands of their guts, which are full of toxins and dissuade their predator and then regenerated.
n The California sea cucumber can move up to 12 feet a day by means of sticky tube feet in rows on the underside of their body.
n California sea cucumbers live from Baja California to Alaska and are commercially fished throughout the region.
n The warty cucumber is only found from Baja California to Monterey Bay.