Broccoli Drink Flushes Two Toxins From Your Body

It sounds like something you’d read on the internet. OK, it is something you’re reading on the internet, but in this case, it’s something that came from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, so it may be worth paying attention to. A Bloomberg School news release reports that a clinical trial involving nearly 300 Chinese men and women in one of China’s most polluted regions found that daily consumption of a half cup of broccoli sprout beverage produced rapid, significant and sustained higher levels of excretion of benzene, a known human carcinogen, and acrolein, a lung irritant. Yes, a broccoli drink clears the body of at least two bad-news toxins. And now the drill down: Participants in the control group drank a beverage made of sterilized water, pineapple and lime juice while the beverage for the treatment group also contained a dissolved freeze-dried powder made from broccoli sprouts that contained glucoraphanin and sulforaphane. (Broccoli sprouts naturally contain glucoraphanin, a compound that generates sulforaphane when the plant is chewed or the beverage swallowed). The 62 men and 229 women enrolled in the study gave urine and blood samples to researchers, who determined that among those people receiving the broccoli sprout beverage, the rate of excretion of the carcinogen benzene increased 61 percent beginning the first day and continuing throughout the 12-week period. Wait, there’s more: the rate of excretion of the irritant acrolein, rapidly and durably increased 23 percent during the 12-week trial. Why do we care? Because the study shows that there is a simple and safe way to reduce some of the long-term health risks associated with air pollution. Read more from the Bloomberg School of Public Health.