“Eat Your Broccoli, Already
From colon cancer to cataracts, broccoli is lauded as the prince of prevention in the nutritional realm. Recently a team of Penn researchers turned up evidence of another potential health benefit to add to the vegetable’s résumé. It contains a dietary antioxidant that protects against damages caused by chemicals generated by the body’s inflammatory response to infection and injury. Physiology professor Zhe Lu and two colleagues have shown that the antioxidant thiocynate—which is also found in cauliflower—protects lung cells from injuries caused by accumulations of hydrogen peroxide and hypochlorite, the active ingredient in household bleach. It also reduces the toxicity of MPO, an enzyme released from germ-fighting white blood cells during inflammation, in cells that line blood vessels. The finding, which appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in November, raises the possibility that an inadequate dietary supply of thiocynate could worsen inflammatory diseases such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes, heart disease, and neurodegeneration.”
