Science Brief: Does Eating Broccoli Make Arthritis Better? Updated: It Also May Help With Diabetes

justtryme90 (71) in science • 7 years ago (edited)

So I have recently been trying out some, no-background, no nonsense science posts about current topics in the literature. This series has been well received, so today I have returned to follow this protocol yet again and hopefully produce for you something that is both interesting and not a big time investment!

For this post let us turn to a topic that I file under the category of pleasantly surprising. The article we will briefly discuss was published in the journal Nature: Scientific Reports and is titled "Isothiocyanates are detected in human synovial fluid following broccoli consumption and can affect the tissues of the knee joint."

Broccoli Is A Super Food

We all know that broccoli is a SUPER FOOD right? It's quite healthy for us, high in nutrients, high in fiber, low in calories. Tastes great (especially with cheese!!!), what's not to love?

The internet (and science too) is full of wild claims about the wondrous health properties of broccoli. It Fights Cancer due to the compound sulforaphane. Interestingly this particular compound is also thought to help prevent arthritis [3] due to its protective properties of cartilage (in our joints!)

What Were The Authors Studying?

They were continuing to study broccoli in relation to arthritis, specifically this compound solforaphane. Solforaphane (or 1-isothiocyanato-4-methylsulfinylbutane) is a compound that is produced in our bodies through processing of another compound called glucoraphanin, which is made by broccoli. Now as I mentioned there have been a variety of previous studies on solforaphane where people have identified quite a bit about how it accumulates in the body after eating broccoli (including in people on a high broccoli diet). [4], [5]. What researchers have also found is that despite the fact that this compound accumulates in the body, there is no known toxicity issue from consuming normal amounts of broccoli in the diet, even indefinitely.

This is what solforaphane looks like

In this study the authors wanted to see if the arthritis and joint protection from this compound were derived from it actually accumulating in those locations, or if the effect was due to it's work elsewhere in some other biochemical pathway.

Briefly What Did They Find?

People who ate more broccoli (which was high in the glucoraphanin) compound has higher levels of isothyocyanate compounds in their blood (this is the class that solforaphane belongs to), with an increase in solforaphane specifically noted.
In this study people who were eating a high glucoraphanin broccoli diet did not show a reduction in cartilage damage
However the people eating the high broccoli diet did have itothyocyanates found in the fluid between their joints (synovial fluid), while the control group did not.
They also saw a change in the protein composition in these synovial joint fluids, for only those on the high broccoli diet.

Conclusions

The authors illustrated in this article for the first time that broccoli consumption results in an accumulation of Solforaphane and other isothyocyanate compounds in joint fluid (these are the protective compounds), and noted a change in the protein composition of these fluids. These findings support prior research indicating that solforaphane has a direct joint protective activity. A number of these protein composition changes were reductions in ones which have been previously identified to associate with conditions like rhumatoid arthritis such as Calreticulin, which is found in higher levels in the joints of those suffering from arthritis [6]. The authors findings here illustrate potential mechanisms by which the protective properties of solforaphane might come.

I Have Arthritis... Should I Eat More Broccoli?

Well according to this article the answer isn't just broccoli as the control group here was also eating it. Rather the key was the group eating broccoli that was high in glucoraphanin. Beyond this, there are no guarantees of miracle cures, or that if you are eating broccoli that is high in glucoraphanin you won't develop arthritis. Nevertheless, considering all of the other health benefits associated with eating this nutrient dense veggie, it doesn't seem like the worst plan to try to incorporate it into your diet if you don't already eat it, or to try to eat it regularly if you already do ( I know I eat broccoli all the time! Yay me! )

Additional Interesting Research Edit 6-15-2017

A recent article published in the journal Science: Translational Medicine titled "Sulforaphane reduces hepatic glucose production and improves glucose control in patients with type 2 diabetes". Studying the very same compound Sulforaphane, which we discussed in this post originally, has found that high concentrations (administered in a pill) had a beneficial effect on blood glucose levels in diabetics. As far as the effect from consumption of broccoli is concerned, you would have to eat 5 kilograms of it daily, to get a comparable amount of the compound in your system (and I don't think anyone is going to start eating that much broccoli... sooo much fiber). So this is not something to think too much about (from a nutrition standpoint) nevertheless it is just another positive aspect of broccoli and these isothyocyanate compounds that it produces.

Sources

All Non Cited Images Are From Pixabay.com or Flickr.com And Are Available Under Creative Commons Licenses

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