Sulforaphane Sparks Interest for Anticancer and Antiinflammatory Benefits

Imagine a single supplement with scientific evidence of its anticancer, antioxidant, antidiabetic, and anti-inflammatory properties. It comes as no surprise that one of the phytochemicals in broccoli, which is emerging as one of the best super foods, has an impressive array of health benefits. Several recent issues of Life Extension magazine have featured articles on the importance of eating cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, and Brussels sprouts. Cruciferous vegetables contain bioactive chemicals that favorably impact hormone levels and cell division. Yet one of their less well-known phytochemicals is sulforaphane, which is found in abundance in young sprouts of broccoli. These young sprouts contain a sugar molecule, sulforaphane glucosinolate, which when chewed and combined with the plant's own enzyme, myrosinase, releases sulforaphane into the body.

Anticancer Properties

Researchers at the University of Michigan (U of M) Comprehensive Cancer Center believe that sulforaphane could become both a novel and highly effective treatment for breast cancer. Current chemotherapy treatments attack rapidly dividing cells but do nothing to stop cancer stem cells -- the small number of specific cells responsible for fueling the growth of cancerous breast tumors. In laboratory experiments, sulforaphane was shown to target and kill cancer stem cells and prevented new malignancies from growing.

The U of M team first worked with mice with breast cancer and documented the number of cancer stem cells in their breast tumors. The mice were then injected with varying concentrations of sulforaphane. The sulforaphane (1) significantly reduced the number of cancer stem cells, while leaving ordinary cells unharmed, and (2) prevented the breast cancer cells in mice from generating new tumors.

Next, the team tested the effects of sulforaphane on human breast cancer cell cultures in the lab. Again, the researchers found sulforaphane greatly reduced the number of human breast cancer stem cells. Most cancer researchers believe that controlling cancer in patients requires elimination of their cancer stem cells. But for decades, existing cancer treatments have offered no way of directly attacking cancer stem cells. The stem cell findings are the primary reason the U of M test results have generated so much interest within the cancer community. If these laboratory test results could be replicated in humans, the supplement sulforaphane could provide a major milestone in the development of a cure for breast cancer.

The concentrations of sulforaphane used in the study, 50 mg/kg and 1-5 micromol/L, were higher than what can be normally achieved by eating broccoli. However, in principle, humans could absorb the necessary concentrations of sulforaphane through standardized broccoli extract doses. Currently, the U of M research team is planning a future clinical trial to test sulforaphane both as a prevention and treatment for breast cancer.

In addition to breast cancer, sulforaphane has been found to prevent gastric cancer by reducing colonization of the cancer and ulcer-linked bacteria Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) in the body. These findings caught the attention of the National Institute of Health, which now includes a web page on its Internet domain that describes experiments on using sulforaphane as treatment for the H. pylori bacteria. The experiments reported extant have generally involved mice, although they are encouraging that sulforaphane in large enough doses might kill extracellular, intracellular, and antibiotic-resistant forms of H. pylori in humans and thereby prevent ulcers or gastric cancer.

Sulforaphane's anticancer benefits are not limited to internal organs. Topical application of sulforaphane has been shown in several studies to reduce the incidence of squamous cell carcinomas. Most recently, researchers at the University of Arizona Cancer Center discovered a new mechanism of action for sulforaphane's prevention of skin cancer based on inhibition of the transcription factor activator protein-1 (AP-1).

Anti-inflammatory Properties

Research by University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) scientists has found that sulforaphane appears to protect against respiratory inflammation that causes asthma, allergic rhinitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other conditions that make it hard to breathe. Sulforaphane's mechanism of action appears to center on triggering antioxidant enzymes in response to the onslaught of free radicals the people breath in everyday in polluted air containing pollen, smoke, and allergens. Interestingly, the researchers concluded that alfalfa, another green food that is sometimes referred to as "the perfect food," did not contain sulforaphane and did not trigger the antioxidant enzyme response in their experiments.

Two recent studies from 2010 have shown that sulforaphane could be used to treat arthritis. In the first of the two studies, researches at the Catholic University of Korea, in Seoul, Korea, found that sulforaphane inhibits the rheumatoid T cells and also regulates the inflammatory response to arthritis. The authors concluded that the combined antiarthritic and immune regulatory effects of sulforaphane, which were confirmed in vivo, suggest that it may offer a possible treatment for rheumatoid arthritis. The second study, which is now underway at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, seeks to determine if sulforaphane blocks the enzymes that cause joint destruction in osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis. The scientist are also interested in studying ways sulforaphane might stop or prevent the development of arthritis.

Osteoarthritis is the leading cause of disability in the USA where it affects around thirty million people. It is a degenerative joint disease which gradually destroys the cartilage in the joints, particularly in the hands, feet, spine, hips and knees of older people. There is currently no effective treatment other than pain relief or joint replacement.

Sulforaphane is also known to have an anti-inflammatory effect on arteries. In laboratory experiments with mice, researchers found that sulforaphane could "switch on" a protein, Nrf2, that protects against plaque build up. This protective protein is inactive in the bends and branches of arteries, which are highly vulnerable to clogging.

Summary

Sulforaphane has well-documented health benefits in many areas, but this article focused on the recent evidence for its anticancer and anti-inflammatory benefits. Sulforaphane in vitro has been shown to arrest breast cancer stem cells. This discovery represents a significant milestone towards treating breast cancer, because existing chemotherapies are ineffective against cancer stem cells, which create new cancer cells and thus fuel the growth of tumors. In addition to breast cancer, sulforaphane has been shown to inhibit and protect against gastric cancers and squamous cell skin cancers.

The anti-inflammatory benefits of sulforaphane could lead to a possible treatment for, and prevention of, both osteoarthritis and the more debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. Finally, sulforaphane has been shown in laboratory studies with mice to switch on a protective protein that helps to prevent the atherosclerotic build up of plaques in arterial walls. Sulforaphane helps to prevent the arteries from becoming inflamed with plaques and clogged. For all these reasons, patients with these medical conditions as well as members of the general public interested in disease prevention are waiting with keen interest to learn if these experimental results will be confirmed in human clinical trials.