Yes, I have seen it on Dr. Oz. I also noticed that Dr. Mercola was looking rather yellow/orange, himself! Be careful with Dr. Oz's show. He contradicts himself, and makes blunders on TV..he is not a alternative specialist..he is a cardiologist jumping on the bandwagon with little talent for it.

Dr. Mercola is promoting it heavily because he sells it and has a vested interest. It does show promise in animal studies. But we did not evolve to consume it in high doses every day.

I don't know where they get those doses though?

Using antioxidants is a good idea, but we have seen in some research that excessive use of one is not always good. Vit E and Vit A took some hits in cancer studies, for example. This is because the antioxidants work as a TEAM handing off free radicals to each other. When used heavily as ONE only the system does not work. Most of the cancer studies did not include Vit C with the A or E.

Vit C (antioxidant) is also very good, and there are some interesting things being published about massive doses used in liposomal or IV preps, that supposedly cure cancer! The RSD community is trying this too with some success.

http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread158757.html

I am thinking of trying this myself! I already use 500mg Ester C daily. Liposomal is available now on the net.

So IMO for what it is worth, you can try the astaxanthin, but I can't really say that massive dose is necessary or effective or even safe yet. I'd start with the 4mg daily.

I tend to look at things chemically, because that is my training.
How the cells work, why they stop working, is where the research today is. Doctors do not get much training in chemistry or biochemistry or drugs. This is a huge weak spot in their education. They memorize and memorize names of diseases, anatomy (much of which they forget), and clinical presentations. But drug therapy and chemistry is not there for them. Doctors have become very reliant on drug reps and that is unfortunate because they conceal information that might affect their "numbers". Merck you know, had a patent for Lovastatin and CoQ-10 together, because they KNEW back when they launched the first statin, that CoQ-10 was seriously depleted!
They could not figure out how to solubilize the CoQ-10 and it was too expensive for them, so they dropped it. And they kept that secret for a decade,during which people sickened and weakened. Other companies followed their example.
You see people are not likely to pay $60 a month out of pocket for a supplement to counteract a $2.00 copay drug. (Yes copays were $2.00 when BCBS started 3rd party payment.) And Yes CoQ-10 was very expensive back then. Much less so now even with the improved water soluble type.
What Merck also did with Vioxx is not unusual, but they just got caught. Some doctors are curious enough to find answers online, but they are really not common from what I see on these boards!

edit: I am looking around further about astaxanthin:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...08814611010119
This article states it induces Cytochrome P450 activity in mice.
This enzyme system is what our bodies use to metabolize drugs.
So I am concerned about this action of it.
Also I am trying to find if this algae is related to the cyanobacteria/algae with the CNS toxins in them. I am not finding answers to that yet. There is great controversy about blue green algae, and this toxin. This link here is a bit of it:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/thread169296.html
I did last weekend look at a long paper about cyanobacteria in the Great Lakes and that was scary. I am still searching that one too.
edit: so far this algae seems to be in a different class than the blue green type (with the toxins).

There is one paper on "safety" in humans for a short time:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12804020
This is probably where Dr. Mercola gets his recommendation from.
I think it is too soon to tell.