- Jul 20, 2016
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I grew up hearing that broccoli was nature's broom - the polite way of saying it was good for moving things along your digestive tract. I love it steamed with lemon juice and salt or with a little goat cheese. I have given up two of my childhood staples of broccoli-cheese-rice casserole and broccoli-cheese soup.
Sulforaphane, one of the agents in broccoli, may have a great potential in dealing with type 2 diabetes. The preliminary studies done with mice and people show the powdered form of sulforaphane yielded as good results as did the most prescribed drug. More tests are needed, but they are hopeful about bringing this pill to market. Why a pill? You would have to eat 8 pounds of broccoli to get the same benefits as one pill.
In their search for an alternative therapy, researcher Annika Axelson of the University of Gothenburg and her colleagues decided to use a different tactic. Instead of targeting an individual gene or protein, they focused on identifying the genes responsible for the liver's elevated glucose production, a key disease mechanism. By analyzing the liver tissue of diabetic mice that had been fed a high-fat diet, they eventually identified a network of 50 genes responsible for causing increased blood glucose levels. This was then matched against different compounds for drugs that could potentially reverse the disease.
Of the 2,800 substances that they investigated, one stood out: sulforaphane. Researchers were alerted to its potential impact on diabetes when they found it tamping down glucose production in cultured liver cells.
http://newatlas.com/type-2-diabetes-broccoli-compound-sulfiraphane/50078/
Sulforaphane, one of the agents in broccoli, may have a great potential in dealing with type 2 diabetes. The preliminary studies done with mice and people show the powdered form of sulforaphane yielded as good results as did the most prescribed drug. More tests are needed, but they are hopeful about bringing this pill to market. Why a pill? You would have to eat 8 pounds of broccoli to get the same benefits as one pill.
In their search for an alternative therapy, researcher Annika Axelson of the University of Gothenburg and her colleagues decided to use a different tactic. Instead of targeting an individual gene or protein, they focused on identifying the genes responsible for the liver's elevated glucose production, a key disease mechanism. By analyzing the liver tissue of diabetic mice that had been fed a high-fat diet, they eventually identified a network of 50 genes responsible for causing increased blood glucose levels. This was then matched against different compounds for drugs that could potentially reverse the disease.
Of the 2,800 substances that they investigated, one stood out: sulforaphane. Researchers were alerted to its potential impact on diabetes when they found it tamping down glucose production in cultured liver cells.
http://newatlas.com/type-2-diabetes-broccoli-compound-sulfiraphane/50078/
...because it helps make some awesome trumpeting noises from one's "nether" regions! 
