This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Broccoli Sprouts -- Cancer, Glucosinolates

John Brownlee wrote:
> 
> All--
> 
> According to article in Washington Post,  (Eclosed again) - Sprouts do not
> contain large quantaties of Glucosinolates but do  contain 20 to 50 times
> more sulforaphane than the average adult broccoli plant.
> 
> Below is article I referenced:
> John F. Brownlee
> 
> Researchers May Market Tasty Broccoli Sprouts Believed to Fight Cancer
> 
> By Rick Weiss
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Tuesday, September 16, 1997; Page A06
> The Washington Post
> 
> Young broccoli seedlings are chock full of a natural compound that helps
> prevent cancer in animals, new research indicates.
> 
> Scientists at Johns Hopkins University, where the work was conducted, said
> they may market the pleasant-tasting green and white sprouts if studies now
> underway confirm the seedlings' anticancer potential in people. In an
> unusual twist for the health food marketplace, however, the team has
> created a nonprofit foundation that would donate any profits from the
> sprouts to cancer research.
> 
> Research leader Paul Talalay said the sprouts could help people who are
> missing out on the proven health benefits of eating broccoli, cauliflower
> and related vegetables, which have been shown to help prevent lung, colon
> and other kinds of cancers. Surveys have indicated that most people eat far
> fewer than the five daily servings of these vegetables and fruits that
> federal health officials recommend, and many people say they dislike
> broccoli in particular because of its bitter flavor and potentially
> flatulent side effects.
> 
> Other researchers said the work represents an important advance in the
> effort to clarify what exactly lends fruits and vegetables their
> disease-preventing powers -- a daunting scientific puzzle, given the
> chemical complexity of most foods.
> 
> "This is a major step forward," said Lee Wattenberg, a professor of
> laboratory medicine at the University of Minnesota. "This is a very
> important contribution to make to our understanding of cancer prevention."
> 
> Wattenberg and others warned, however, that further studies are needed to
> prove that broccoli sprouts can prevent cancer in people as well as they
> seem to in animals. And Food and Drug Administration officials said that
> even the agency's recently loosened labeling rules would preclude broccoli
> sprout marketers from making specific health claims.
> 
> "There's not anything that can be said on a food label or dietary
> supplement label that connects the substance directly to cancer
> prevention," said Elizabeth J. Campbell, acting director of the FDA's
> office of food labeling. Since 1994, Campbell said, health claims can be
> made only when there is "significant scientific agreement" about a
> substance's health benefits -- a standard not yet met by broccoli, broccoli
> sprouts, or the active ingredient isolated by the Hopkins team, which is
> found in both.
> 
> That substance is sulforaphane, a compound present in various plants in the
> family Brassica, including cauliflower and cabbage but especially broccoli.
> In 1992, Talalay and his colleagues showed that sulforaphane could increase
> the levels of protective substances inside cells, called phase II enzymes,
> which can detoxify carcinogens before they cause cancer.
> 
> The finding made big news, in part because it came soon after a comment by
> then-President George Bush about his personal distaste for broccoli. But
> Talalay also found that sulforaphane levels varied considerably from plant
> to plant, making the foodstuff an unreliable source of the compound.
> 
> In today's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
> Talalay, Jed W. Fahey and Yuesheng Zhang describe their surprise discovery
> that, ounce for ounce, three-day-old broccoli sprouts reliably contain 20
> to 50 times more sulforaphane than the average adult broccoli plant. They
> also show that rats given modest daily doses of sprout-derived sulforaphane
> for five days developed significantly fewer and smaller tumors after being
> fed a potent carcinogen.
> 
> Moreover, they found that sprouts do not contain any phase I enzymes, which
> are present in adult broccoli and have the potential to enhance tumor
> growth. "It's not only a quantitative difference but also a qualitative
> difference in the profile of chemicals," Talalay said during a recent
> interview and sprout tasting at his Baltimore laboratory.
> 
> The team grows the sprouts in large trays stacked on racks in a 10-foot by
> 10-foot fluorescently lit room, where a fine mist sprays the seedlings
> every 15 minutes. In three days, Fahey said, the team can raise a crop of
> sprouts containing as much sulforaphane as an acre of broccoli would yield
> in a year.
> 
> The sprouts, which have two tiny leaves on top, are crunchy and slightly
> spicy, but not bitter.
> 
> Based on epidemiological studies of diet and cancer, Talalay estimates that
> a person would have to eat more than 2 pounds of broccoli every week to
> reduce the odds of getting colon cancer by 50 percent. The same risk
> reduction could be accomplished, he said, with less than a quarter-ounce
> serving of sprouts on a sandwich or salad each day.
> 
> Peter Greenwald, director of cancer prevention and control at the National
> Cancer Institute, which helped fund the science, praised the work as
> "elegant basic research" but warned against jumping to clinical
> conclusions. "From a public recommendation point of view it's still early,"
> he said. "I wouldn't tell people to go out and eat whole bunches of
> three-day-old broccoli sprouts."
> 
> Although he had no reason to believe the sprouts might be dangerous,
> Greenwald said, he recalled being humbled a few years ago when studies
> showed that supplements of beta carotene, the vitamin precursor widely
> believed to be health enhancing, increased the risk of lung cancer in heavy
> smokers.
> 
> Talalay said the Hopkins team has developed methods for freeze-drying the
> sprouts into a fine powder that can be packed into gelatin capsules, and
> was evaluating the biochemical and regulatory advantages and disadvantages
> of marketing the product either that way or as fresh sprouts. He said that
> people could probably grow their own sprouts from broccoli seeds, but
> warned that some commercial vegetable seeds are coated with protective
> chemicals that may not be safe to eat.
> 
> © Copyright 1997 The Washington Post Company
> 
> ----------
> > From: Darryl Clark <autores@INAME.COM>
> > To: Multiple recipients of list SQFT <SQFT@UMSLVMA.UMSL.EDU>
> > Subject: Re: Broccoli Sprouts -- Cancer, Glucosinolates
> > Date: Thursday, September 18, 1997 4:14 PM
> >
> > Thanks for the info and reference Andreas.  It echoed what I felt, but I
> > had no factual info to back up my opinion.  I had a friend who went on a
> > vitamin A binge when we were teenagers, I'd heard it could be toxic in
> > large quantitys but he thought that if alittle helps then a lot is
> > better.  He ended up in the hospital with liver damage and believe it or
> > not he turned ORANGE.  Not good for a teenagers social standing! Anyway,
> > it seems best to improve diet overall and eliminate some of the useless
> > things sold on the shelves as
> > "food". Anyone square ft gardening (hopefully organic) has already taken
> > a big step in the right direction.
> >
> > FYI: Johnnys Selected Seeds, and Mellingers, sell a hybrid broc. called
> > "Saga" which is supposed to have a very high content of some of the
> > anti-cancer compounds now getting press attention.
> >
> > DC
> >
> >
> > VIVIANI Comp wrote:
> > >
> > > >I have been reading about Broccoli Sprouts containing more cancer
> fighting
> > > >chemicals than the mature vegetable.
> > >
> > > This "cancer fighting chemicals", named Glucosinolates,
> > > are -- like most of the biologically effective chemicals --
> > > quite poisonous if you take in too much of them.
> > >
> > > Theophrastus Paracelsus:
> > >
> > > "Nothing is a poison,
> > > only the dosage makes
> > > that anything is a poison."
> > >
> > > So don't take too much of them. Eat your Broccoli and feel good,
> > > but don't eat Broccoli only:
> > >
> > > "The effect of glucosinolates on animals that feed on brassicacious
> species
> > > has been known since 1928 when rabbits fed high levels of cabbage were
> found
> > > to develop goiter" (brassicacious species = cabbage, kale, broccoli,
> etc.)
> > >
> > > On the other hand:
> > >
> > > "Epidemiological studies of diet and cancer incidence over the last
> decade
> > > reveal evidence of a protective effect of fruit and vegetables,
> especially
> > > those of the Brassicaceae and the genus Brassica."
> > >
> > > (Citations from Rosa, E.A.S., et al.: Glucosinolates in Crop Plants,
> > > Horticultural Reviews Nr. 19, pp. 99-215, 1997)
> > >
> > > Hey, enjoy about, don't "force" your health!
> > >
> > > Andreas
> > >
> > > -------------------------------------------------
> > > VIVIANI Comp   CH-8833 Samstagern    Switzerland
> > > E-mail: viviani@active.ch  Dr. Andreas Viviani
> > > Tel: +41 1 786 11 16    Fax: +41 1 786 11 25
> > > Homepage:  /http://www2.active.ch/~viviani
> > > ---------------------------------------
> > >
> > >
> ***************************************************************************
> > > To unsubscribe, send to: listserv@umslvma.umsl.edu
> > > the body message: unsubscribe sqft
> > > See http://www.umsl.edu/~silvest/garden/sqft.html for archive, FAQ and
> more.
> >
> >
> ***************************************************************************
> > To unsubscribe, send to: listserv@umslvma.umsl.edu
> > the body message: unsubscribe sqft
> > See http://www.umsl.edu/~silvest/garden/sqft.html for archive, FAQ and
> more.
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index