Sprouts for bladder cancer prevention
A study revealed that a concentrated extract culled from broccoli sprouts could cut in half your risk of developing bladder cancer.
While breast, prostate and lung cancers seem to get all the press, you can get cancer of anything, so the goal should be prevention in general. But the bladder, in particular, seems to react strongly when exposed to isothiocyanates, a metabolized derivative of glucosinolates.
Glucosinolates are the active plant chemical that is found in all cruciferous vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and broccoli sprouts.
Once you ingest glucosinolates, your body metabolizes them into an anti- carcinogen called isothiocyanates.
For the purpose of this study, researchers used an extract of broccoli sprouts that has about 600 times more isothiocyanate content than regular broccoli. However, the research group concedes that even if you are at risk of getting bladder cancer, it's probably not necessary to eat sprouts by the bucketful.
The study was done with lab animals, all of which received the same diet for two weeks. They were then assigned to five different groups. Three groups were given a chemical in their water that causes bladder cancer, and two of those three groups were given the sprout extract prior to the addition of the chemical. Of the two groups given this extract, one received a high dose and the other a low dose.
The two remaining groups were used as study controls, with one getting just the basic diet, and the other receiving just the extract.
96 percent of the animals given only the cancer-inducing chemical developed on average two tumors.
22 percent of the animals that received the chemical plus the low dose extract developed tumors.
Animals given the chemical and the high dose extract developed 58 percent fewer tumors than the control group.
The two groups that had either just diet or just the extract developed no tumors. In addition, the extract group displayed no adverse side effects from the extract.
How exactly the isothiocyanates did their protective work is not yet understood, but suffice it to say, you don't need the how when you've got the why. Especially when there is essentially zero risk of side effects! Fill up on cruciferous vegetables, and let the researchers worry over the details.
