Hello friends today's episode is the recorded to our QA I hosted with dr. Judge Fahey on November 7th 2020 in this Q&A we cover topics on all things broccoli sprouts and sulfur Fame including the minimum daily dose of sulforaphane that has been shown to provide health benefits where dr. Fahy gets his broccoli seeds from whether adding ground mustard seed to cooked broccoli increases sulforaphane when to consume broccoli Sprouts or sulforaphane.
After being exposed to air pollutants how long health benefits of sulfur faint last and how frequently they can be consumed whether sulfur faint helps enhance the excretion of heavy metals and pesticides how sulforaphane increases glutathione in the plasma and brain effects that persist for at least three months in a continuous consumption scenario sulfur framed in the context of cancer prevention versus cancer therapy the potential benefits of sulfur feign for Alzheimer's disease.
These whether it is safe to get sulforaphane by just eating broccoli seeds the best way to store Sprouts the most bioavailable way to consume Moringa what sulforaphane supplement brands that dr. Fahy considers reliable.
The evidence that strongly suggests that sulforaphane does not have a meaningful goitrogenic effect and more importantly has no negative effect on thyroid health and much more a couple of quick things before we jump into this QA first Jedi worked with me and my team to put together a 15-page sprouting guide that will guide you through the basic steps on how to safely grow your own broccoli Sprouts at home. It is beautifully Illustrated. And if you want to grow your own Sprouts you need this guy.
Get that at found my fitness.com forward slash sprouting. Spr OU T ing or search found my fitness sprouting guide. You can't miss it second. I do a Q&A like this every single month for premium members members submit questions and can join the queue a live or they can also listen to my answers to questions and my responses on their private premium podcast feed members also get out.
Other great benefits including the aliquot our new members only podcast that curates and remixes the best of found my fitness head to found my fitness.com forward slash premium to learn more about that and the various other benefits. Once again, that's found my fitness.com forward slash premium P Re Mi, um premium now, let's jump into the recorded QA with dr. Jed Fahey.
Welcome everyone. This is a special edition crowdcast Q&A with our guest. Dr. Jed Fahey who has spent more than 20 years researching phytochemicals isothiocyanates and sulforaphane at Johns Hopkins. He's a friend of mine and I am so excited to have him here today. He is a mentor as well. I've been I have been reading his Publications and
Following his research for many years now. And so it's such a pleasure to have him here answering questions from all you guys he retired a few months ago and has some interesting projects he's working on but we can leave that for another podcast. So today he's going to mention he's going to answer questions that were submitted by the audience and the questions were voted on and so Jed chose a variety of questions that were the top voted questions as
Well as questions that have come up frequently popular questions and questions that are you know that he found interesting and he arranged the questions and kind of categories like health benefits safety sprouting Etc. So we're not going to follow the order that you see on the crowdcast question screen. So just keep that in mind. But before we jump into the questions Jed, maybe you can spend about 60 seconds or so just sort of giving people
Brief intro on your work and go from
there.
Good. Okay. Well, thank you Rhonda for for having me and I have known you for a little while now and I'm glad you called me a friend. I certainly love your found my fitness and I wish I had more time to follow you more closely, but that's coming because as you mentioned I retired the 60-second version is, you know, I was born on a high I started.
Out Life as a plant physiologist and spent 15 years in the egg Biotech Industry. Then came to Hopkins in 1993 spent 27 years there and got my doctorate. Well, I was at Hopkins in nutritional biochemistry working full-time also started a company called Braska protection products or BPP while I was working there with my mentor Paul tell a and his son Tony and
then Paul and I backed away from that company so that we could do clinical trials with broccoli Sprouts, which we you know developed and so we've done a lot of work with broccoli Sprouts. In fact broccoli sprouts and sulforaphane have been our primary focus over the years as well as Moringa and a variety of other plant fight phytochemicals. We've looked at the effects on helicobacter pylori infection and on and on autism
More recently all with collaborators, of course because you don't do these things by yourself. I retired in June the end of June. I have an adjunct appointment at Hopkins still but what I am doing is Consulting now again for the company that we started but just as a consultant and I'm on the scientific Advisory board for a couple of companies. Cooly, cooly that makes wearing a powder and bright seed which is developing some interesting food products.
I want to spend my retirement. First of all wearing the same shirt as I have my wife looked at me this morning. She said you're wearing the same shirt. You were the last two days. Well, yeah wearing old flannel shirts is part of the joy of retiring to Maine, but I want to spend more time trying to help put in more accessible format some of the very technical stuff that we've been involved with.
And part of that is talking with your constituents from Rhonda and doing the kind of thing we're doing right now. So I hope to do more of that and more more writing as time goes on so we should so that's that's the short, you know, that's the short story and it took more than 60 seconds.
I'm sorry. Awesome. Dad. So glad to have you here. So we'll jump into the questions starting with some of the the health benefits.
The first question is what is the minimum daily dose of sulfur fan that has shown to that has been shown to provide health benefits how much sulfur feign does a 200 gram serving of broccoli or broccoli Sprouts contain?
Yeah, so, you know, I I have to preface the these my launching into the aster system of these questions by saying yeah, I you went through the extensive and wonderful questions many of them as did. I number of days ago. This is a kind of question that comes up all the time and to those of you who are non scientists. I tend to talk all we
Scientists and certainly chemists and biochemists tend to talk in micromoles. So if you look at any of our papers, we talk micromoles. I've I will try to give you an answer that's translated into milligrams. But this is of course complex and something that's still in play and is still being researched by many people. So it all depends on the amount of glucose or a fan and the precursor of sulforaphane that is
Broccoli or Sprouts? I'm going to avoid a long diatribe on glucoraphanin and myrosinase and sulforaphane because I have the feeling that if you listen to Rhonda at all or gone to our podcast the podcast that she and I did together or some of her subsequent podcast.
Most people know about the fact that glucoraphanin is a precursor found in the plants myrosinase has an enzyme found in the plants and in your body your microbiome and they react and they form sulforaphane. So we think that's so
interesting that we have the enzyme in our gut meaning we are meant to get the precursor to convert it into sulfur or feign. We contain the enzyme in our gut I just love that anyways, go
ahead so
Absolutely all of us do and I mean that all however many hundred of you. There are in this call all have myrosinase containing bacteria in your gut unless you've just blasted yourself with antibiotics and had a you know, an enema and just cleaned out your intestinal system then maybe you don't have any and we've done these sorts of experiments actually with with real people. So there are two ways of doing this of hydrolyzing the glucose.
Laughs and that's present in broccoli one is when you chew it you release the enzyme from the broccoli tissue or broccoli Sprouts or broccoli seeds and the second way is from your micro micro biome and if you take supplements, you're either getting just glucoraphanin or there are now supplements with a combination of glucoraphanin and myrosinase and there are very few if any good ones with just so forth and it will get to that later. I'm sure we have to sew
She was about the dose. And if you're the best the best advice that we can give that I can give now is that all the clinical studies seem to be pointing towards a dose of something between about fifty and a hundred micro moles of sulforaphane a day. I discuss that a little bit in the sprouting PDF that Rhonda has just put out but
The question that was originally posted talks about a 200 gram. So let's start with the question a 200 gram serving of broccoli. That's a pretty lot for most people. I think that's a very healthy serving of broccoli Market stage broccoli. However, broccoli for broccoli Sprouts. That's a huge serving most people that I'm aware of including myself would not enjoy cramming down 200 grams of broccoli sprouts.
so I'll just base a ballpark estimation on a hundred grams of either broccoli or sprouts and based on the amount of glucoraphanin that's in them and our knowledge of conversion and yield you might get about anywhere between four milligrams of glucose or a fan into a hundred hundred and fifty from a hundred grams of broccoli and that would yield about
Out anywhere from about half a half a milligram to something like 18 milligrams of sulforaphane. That's a broccoli. Why is there a huge range there's a huge range because a all of the broccoli is different. It's different based on the way. It's treated in the store the way it's grown the genetics of the broccoli and secondly, all of you are different and your gut microbiomes are going to yield different amounts of sulforaphane. So,
There's a huge range and with broccoli Sprouts a hundred grams would give you somewhere between a know better about five milligrams and three 350. Sorry between about five or six milligrams and about 60 milligrams of sulforaphane. So they're they're just rough rough approximations cooking destroys myrosinase. So if you're cooking broccoli or broccoli Sprouts, then you're just
counting on the bacteria in your gut. I mentioned the the person-to-person variation. There's no way unfortunately to know if you're a good converter. There's no way to know how much sulforaphane or glue carafe and is in broccoli or broccoli Sprouts because you have to get them tested in a lab and there no commercial Labs that do these tests routinely, so this is still a problem and you know you
I mentioned this in that PDF that Rhonda's posted but unfortunately you as a consumer are you know, even if you spend say ten dollars on Broccoli seeds and Sprout them yourself, it would cost you a hundred and fifty dollars to send one sample of those broccoli seeds out to a commercial lab to get them tested to see if they're high glucoraphanin or not. So as I, you know, I don't make the rules I just abide by them or
I too, but so unfortunately as it stands now, it's very difficult to know what you're getting. So we just have to work. We just have to talk in terms of ruff ruff averages and and when Paul tell and I get our first publication on Broccoli Sprouts, you know, our our point was that a serving of say something like a couple of ounces 60 grams or so of broccoli Sprouts gave you as much glucoraphanin.
As you know a quarter of a pound or a half a pound of Market stage broccoli. And so these are all quantities one final word. Just that that the quantity of glucoraphanin and so forth and you get from broccoli Sprouts from a couple of ounces we think is a reasonable amount to put you in a Zone where you're getting some protective effect. And so it's this roughly this level that most of the clinical
all Studies have targeted because God forbid your clinical study should be positive and work you want to be able to translate that to something people can eat. I think the answers to all the rest of my questions will be shorter Rhonda and you've been gracious not to not to jump in and interrupt but I hope that's sort of addressed that
question. Why don't one of the questions that popped up as you were talking about variation in the glucoraphanin content and see broccoli seeds. Do you have a preferred seed?
For broccoli sprout
seeds. Yeah, that's a good question. So I don't my broccoli seeds myself really anymore. So when we were doing experiments in the lab, we for a long time bought them from Johnny's selected seeds and Albion, Maine and they they were source of organic broccoli seeds. And and we had tested some when Paul tell a first hired me in 1990.
Three he had gotten some seeds from them and we tested them and they were high in glucose or a fan and we worked with I worked with a plant a broccoli breeder who was a USDA scientist for many years and we did a variety of crossing and we're looking at the potency of broccoli genotypes. And yeah, we developed some germ plasm. That was good. That was high in glucose or a patent.
More importantly, I guess I should say that the company that we founded does breed and make their own broccoli seeds and this is obviously a big Venture and they they test their seeds all the time. So the very practical answer is when I want broccoli seeds. I asked them for some freebies and they give them to me and I can and I've grown my Sprouts that way but it's very they don't sell broccoli seeds and
There are you know many companies now that sell seeds for sprouting, but I don't I'm not aware of any of them that certify the level of glucoraphanin in those seeds. So again, it's difficult for the consumer to know what they're getting and I hope that we get to a place very soon where the expectation is driven by consumers may be that you know a company that's going to sell seeds for sprouting characterizes the
Graph and level that would be easy for them to do it. It cost some hundred two hundred dollars to do the
test, right? They do it for a fish oil when they characterize the EPA and DHA content one more related chat question. Stephanie was asking what about adding ground mustard seed to cooked broccoli or a cooked cruciferous vegetable like brussels sprouts. For example, is there any effect on that increasing the bioavailability of sulfur Fane? And if so, you know, can you explain why?
Yeah.
Yeah, so look broccoli. So you're talking to I'm sorry. I missed the first part of the question is with broccoli Sprouts,
right? The the first part of the question was just cooked broccoli and you know which which because as you mentioned cooking it kills they at the enzyme myrosinase and so you're essentially not getting much sulforaphane unless you have went like depending on your gut bacteria that have the enzyme myrosinase adding Mustard Seed powder.
Yes, so short answer is yes that should that should facilitate the more rapid conversion of glucoraphanin in that cooked broccoli to sulforaphane. So in the event that you are a low converter and if you wait for it to sorry, we don't have the full body here. But if you wait to it to go all the way down to your large intestine to your small and small and large intestines and wait for those bacteria to act, you know your
Our best our best knowledge of the range of conversion efficiencies that you as a person might do ranges from a few percent of what you ingest to up to maybe about 60 or 70 percent and you don't know unless you test your urine and and that that changes from day to day it changes from you know week to week month to month. So yes if you want to do the
Version before you before you are as you're eating it ground mustard seed daikon. Japanese. Radish is good. Moringa actually has a lot of my Ross and I serve many cruciferous vegetables do but you see then sort of run into taste issues and to me a lot of it all comes down to taste. You know, when we're talking about what we eat what we supplement with so Mustard Seed has a
A characteristic harsh pungent taste right? So it is wasabi and horseradish which are also really good sources of myrosinase. But you know, do you want to add that to broccoli cheese soup and then your instead having you know broccoli horseradish. See I like I like mustard seed
on my my cooked broccoli with butter. I the the study Stephanie's probably referring to is when I shared a couple of years ago where it was very small study about twelve twelve people were
Given a gram of a mustard seed pudding put on top of there. I don't remember if they put on top of the broccoli if they were just giving the gram and then they add the broccoli either way. They increase the sulforaphane by like 45% so we can move on to the next question
though. Okay, that's a reasonable way to deal with cooked fed. Cooked cruciferous vegetables Rhonda. I'd like to interrupt and actually in
Erupting myself, right? So I'd like to say I saw a question a couple of days ago on the site from Lucy and she said something effective does broccoli rabe contain sulforaphane and Lucy. That's a great question. If you're if you're there today and the answer is no it doesn't and broccoli rabe is actually related to broccoli. But interestingly it's not as closely related even
Cauliflower or cabbage are two broccoli and broccoli rabe does not have a significant amount of glucose or a foreigner sulforaphane. But this is this is an opportunity for me to stamp my foot down and say look a lot of people in the lay public especially are under the impression that all cruciferous vegetables have sulforaphane are glucoraphanin. They do not so if you eat any cruciferous vegetables you're
Getting isothiocyanates, which are all closely related to each other. They're all closely related sulforaphane. But for example cabbage has essentially none. It's got other isothiocyanates that are good for you. Many of them cauliflower has essentially none kale doesn't have glucoraphanin to any great extent except as I recall. There's one variety red Russian kale that does have a substantial amount. So
Be careful thinking that all well all cruciferous vegetables are good for you. I think that's fair to say but be careful assuming that all Chris cruciferous vegetables contain sulforaphane because they don't
that's a really important point. Is there a database or a reference that we can go to to see what cruciferous vegetables do you have? Glucoraphanin the precursor to sulfur Fane and what levels they
contain Theresa Johnson?
And I former student and friend of both of ours wrote a couple of broad of an encyclopedia chapter on glucosinolates. And I believe we talked about it in that certainly. There are a number of references that I can give you which reminds me Rhonda, you know you and I both are sort of famous for doing deep dives into the literature and I'm happy to share with you offline.
Her any references that might be helpful to your listeners. And then I know you have places to post them in ways to get them out to listeners.
Yeah, that would be great to get that reference. I'll talk to Teresa as well. Yeah. All right. Excellent. Good. The next question was if I can't consume broccoli Sprouts daily how beneficial is it to consume them only after exposure to heavy air pollutants As A Firefighter. I am exposed to a lot of carcinogens during a fire and
I'm wondering if it's beneficial to only take them post-fire calls. And for how many days.
Yeah, another great question and to the firefighter that ask that thank you for your service. It's been a rough year for firefighters out west. That's for sure. So my best guess is that taking them regularly or taking a supplement in order to prime your system and get your antioxidant and detoxification system ready for the regular assaults that you're laying?
On on on your body, it would probably be wise I think this is a case where you should remember that you if we're talking about carcinogens or toxins or or oxid oxidant chemicals. You never really know when you're being attacked by those those vicious chemicals and I'm I'm actually not exaggerating. I mean, there's there are a lot of nasty chemicals and smoke from certainly from Home Fires and
even from wildfires. So there's you know, if you look at the analogy to wearing seat belts, you know you why did you wear a seat belt not because you plan on getting in an accident, but but it's profit lactic and I think you could make a similar argument. If you know, you're regularly blasting your lungs your body with the components of smoke could make an argument that priming your system to get that response.
Maximally geared up would be good thing one thing we do know from our work in China with with study of air pollution and the effects of sulforaphane on that is that you don't fatigue and this is fortunate but you don't fatigue this biochemical response system. So we gave for 12 weeks we gave daily so glucoraphanin sulforaphane and monitored the upregulation of the this
detective response and did not really see any fatiguing of the of the the response of that system. So short answer then is to the firefighter is yeah, I think taking a supplement regularly would be obviously you're not going to make broccoli Sprouts when you're out doing fire calls, but so probably supplements and in your case would be a good you know, good thing. I'm not a physician. I'm not prescribing them to you, but that's the way I
Feel better. Yeah
Chad if I just could comment as well your your your 12-week study was extremely relevant to not only firefighters but you know people particularly on the west coast in California and you know, Oregon, you know people that are being exposed to these wildfires that are breathing in acrolein which is heavily in Smoke and Benzene, but you know in your study showed that within 24 hours
Benzene excretion was excreted by 60% and acrolein study was increased actually acrolein excretion was increased by 20 about 23% And so I guess they also the question is let's say, you know the firefighter or whoever isn't going to take it daily, but, you know even within a few days knowing they're going on call or whatever. Do you think that would even be beneficial because I mean it literally was in within 24 hours your study in China.
Yeah, yeah, so I do I mean these these obviously there's some time lag between the time you ingest glucoraphanin herself for pain and the time the enzymes are upregulated to respond. It's quite short though. And even after a couple of hours some of those enzymes are cranking up. So the answer to your question is yes, and the main the main sort of
Situation where I think you you know, it might almost have to have it on board before an event is some of the neuronal injury models like when we talk about traumatic brain injury and spinal cord injury. There is an absolutely pronounced effect of sulforaphane that we have seen in a variety of studies we and others when I say we I always mean we and other people are maybe maybe I wasn't even involved in that studying and this case but we see an effect.
Obviously if you have that sort of injury and you're looking for the rapid response of sulforaphane, it would be ideal to have had it on board your body beforehand. But one of the things that appears evident is that with neuronal injury even getting it right after the injury may have some value so it with the fire the fire analogy.
Or the fire situation. Absolutely. We showed that the response was upregulated quickly and it was maintained and it's you say detoxification of two out of the three major pollutants that we looked at happened to a substantial degree and I should mention this was work that my colleague Tom Kunstler started a long time ago in China and we joined in that work in the
It's in about 2001 and so we've been involved with it for many years now and the final studies. There are going to be published soon. I hope amazed at
just amazing work. I love those studies and the fact that the 12 weeks there was no exhausting of the the up regulation of these important detoxification enzymes. That's really a profound that that they were maintained within that whole
Of week. It wasn't like it was a short-term effect that went away. Also. It's as we're going to discuss probably in a couple of minutes about the if the a lot of the preclinical studies on the effects of sulforaphane in Alzheimer's disease. There's been a just onslaught of new research that has shown air pollution is contributing to neurodegenerative diseases starting in early life. So there was a study in Mexico City where air pollution is terrible.
And children so they've been they've been doing post-mortem, you know studies looking in the brain of unfortunately infants and children and young adolescent said of Deb died for whatever reason and they have amyloid-beta plaques in their brain as early as infancy and other you know, pathological changes in the brain going on early early in life, which is really unfortunate. So, I think that the the the the possibility of something like Moringa or
sulforaphane or broccoli Sprouts, you know to help with excreting these, you know toxic compounds and even in other potential ways improving brain health is really exciting. So with that I'll go on to the next the next question which was
How long do the health benefits of broccoli Sprouts last would consuming them every day be better than every other day or once a week?
This is a this is an easy question for me to answer but it's but it's as with most everything else Shades of Grey. It's not black and white. We think that consumption every two or three days is fine because what you're doing is you're not it's not like vitamin C where you're having a direct antioxidant effect in you use up the vitamin C and it's gone. What you're doing is you're cranking up protective enzymes and they last enzymes are proteins and you know, they do work.
In the body and eventually they wear out and break down and get catabolized and and turned into their component amino acids. And then they get remade we know that the elevation of these enzymes last for at least hours and certainly in most cases days a few days. Probably some benefits might be short-lived, you know, if when you talk about habits though people's habits, I think especially with diet and with
Moments if you're taking supplements is better to just do it daily. If you're in the habit of eating broccoli Sprouts, it's easier to say okay, you know I eat them today and I don't need him tomorrow because I'm going to get bored eating the same thing every day. But yeah, every couple of days should be fine. I think two or three days.
I know that the animal Studies have shown that the Nrf2 protective Pathways activated for at least two days. Have you looked at any clinical samples? Human human samples? Is it to see if it's similar or
yeah, that's so that's so
what you were referring to clinical studies when you were referring to any hours to days.
I'm referring to both but but I mean we've looked we've looked into and clinical studies. Also, I mean part of the problem with clinical studies is that you have to pick
sometimes unless you have someone in the hospital in a hospital or in an inpatient setting have an indwelling catheter of some kind in them and are constantly taking blood or having them deliver their urine to you all of it on you know, for days on end, which most people don't like to do. They're very difficult studies to do. So when we do clinical studies in an effort to you know, sort of model have moderate.
For the subject and and reduce the cost of it to a manageable level. We wind up picking times to take blood and to look at elevation of those enzymes and frequently it's a day after dosing and so we know that a day after taking sulforaphane we see these enzymes elevated and and and also I can remember two or three days has been a time point that we've looked at specifically.
We but but others have I think in the clinic?
Yeah, cool. There's someone asking in the chat Krista Bluff. Is there any research around toxic metals and increased detoxification with sulforaphane? So we mentioned some of these carcinogens but it has there been any evidence on
knows. There's been some I'm not I mean I'd have to go and dig those big those papers out for you.
because I'm not I'm not intimately familiar with them and we haven't we didn't do them, but since you mentioned so the answer is yes, and I'll try to find you those those references but that brings up the question of pesticides and other toxins, you know, we we've talked about air pollutants and we've talked about a lot of disease States and protection against cancer and so on and so forth, but others number of years ago especially have looked
at things like paraquat toxicity and there are a number of other pesticides. I can't at the moment remember which ones they are right now of what rotenone I think is one. Yeah people have looked at the ability of sulforaphane to detoxify them or to enhance the elimination of them. So and certainly we've done my colleague Tom Kunstler and that whole team has I mean they
Started out in China in these China studies looking at aflatoxin, which is different than metals and is different than pesticides but it is a potent Toxin and carcinogen that is actually present and peanuts and corn and the part of China where we were working and clearly and this is this is sort of a model for the metal and the pesticide detoxification clearly aflatoxin is converted to a derivative.
Eva t''v bound to compounds which allow it to be more readily excreted in the urine. So this is something that is this. This is what we call detoxification or detoxification and and indeed it's pretty widespread because so this is probably involved in a subsequent question, but a lot of this is because of the upper
Elation of glutathione glutathione is the body's most Pope most predominant detoxification mechanism is present at very high levels in things like the macula of the eye the back of the eye the retina and it is it's a tripeptide meaning it's made up of only three amino acids and it is a very potent antioxidant.
That is endogenous. It's part of your body. But what sulforaphane does is it cranks up the enzymes that are responsible for synthesizing or resynthesizing glutathione. And so it makes more glutathione available and once glutathione is sacrificed and oxidized it remakes it and so that's I mean, it's a long way all my quest all my answers are a long ways of answering simple questions.
I guess but that's a way of saying that sort of where sulforaphane comes into that detoxification pathway. One of one of many ways but it's the probably one of the most important ways.
Yeah. We are going to talk a little bit more about glutathione another question, but I just want to ask you is that is specifically the you know, there has been clinical studies that it increases increases by glutathione and the plasma in the brain. I don't remember how far out those clinical studies went, but you as
You were saying previously with the air pollution studies that you had been collaborated with in your colleagues in China. The the the activation of the Nrf2 system did not stop as long as you were continuing taking the broccoli sprout extract, right? So the glutathione levels would keep going up if you were it's not something that just goes away over time.
Right. Well, they won't they won't keep going up, you know forever. They'll still keep
it exactly.
So if you if you insult your body with a toxin that is detoxified by glutathione. Yes, the they'll be a dip and glutathione levels. What actually happens is the reduced form of glutathione turns into the oxidized form and then the reduced form glutathione is regenerated. So that cycling happens more
more efficiently and indeed the levels overall levels of glutathione are-- somewhat
elevated.
All right. So the
there's another I'm glad you're reading questions as they come in because I can I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna there's
a cancer question, but I'm going to sort of rearrange these two because it's the next question is a good with ion related question and then we'll kind of go back to the cancer one if that's okay. So the the next related question was submitted says on the Kevin Rose podcast Radha Patrick mentioned that broccoli Sprouts increase the production of glutathione in the brain. So I was wondering what your thoughts are on.
U.s. Supplementation if taken long term with the rain stopped producing it naturally. So for people for reference that aren't familiar the the clinical study, I that I referred to on Kevin's podcast the Kevin Rose show was in 2018 publishing 2018 and they found that about 17.7 milligrams of sulforaphane per day for one week increased blood glutathione levels and this correlated with an increase glutathione in certain brain regions on these are unhealthy.
People so as you know, as Jed mentioned glutathione is one of the made body's major antioxidant system. So I guess when you kind of answered that already, but maybe you want to if there's any concluding thoughts you want to
give yeah. Yeah, so I kind of did answer that just now and actually I think I was a co-author of that study. You're referring to the if it's the one by Tom said lack any worse. That's right. Yeah. No. No, that's okay.
Heavy work on the study of I didn't but that so indeed with healthy people. They showed what you said. And so I think there's the brain won't stop producing glutathione. Naturally. There's no question about that and glutathione production and
entering age aging process.
It declines. It declines naturally with age and in fact starting as early as in your twenties. So Ron a year.
On the downhill slope already. I'm way down way down. So, you know supplementing with so forth and I think apparently helps to restore glutathione back to normal or young healthy levels. I think some animal Studies by that same group as shown
right. I mean that how how freaking cool is that? I mean I've seen studies. I was just I just it was a small clinical study, you know, but I was just blown away that you guys showed that it
Price levels in the brain. So
I think it is pretty freaking cool. And and I think I think also the this study that you're referring to or a related study by Sedlak and so and others in Radiology at Hopkins showed that they also showed in in people they were able to show to localize that that enhanced glutathione by functional MRI.
Or but yeah, so so I mean the Imaging just to sort of it's not icing on the cake. It's the future and I mean, I think we're going to see I hope we're going to see a lot more functional MRI type studies where people say, yeah, I see this and that in the blood. I see this and that in the urine, you know, I see conversion. I see these whether it's drugs or phytochemicals. I see these effects in blood, but we don't really care that much about
Except as an index or are a marker what we care about is is it doing something in the brain where the muscles or you know, whatever and so these now with higher resolution MRI people are able to show these changes and it's pretty cool. If I had if I was reborn and rebranded as a scientist. I'd want to be a microbiome specialist, but I'm way past that but I think I'd also want to be a functional MRI person because
That's going to be very cool as we go forward.
All right, let's move on to the next question, which was related to cancer. The question was are there any studies that show that you know of that would suggest broccoli Sprouts would be beneficial for a person who has already been diagnosed with cancer. If so, which
cancers. Yeah, so I've got to repeat the admonition caution here. I'm not a physician. I'm not your physician and I don't give medical advice.
Um, I would in that instance, I would certainly eat a vegetable based diet a whole food vegetable-based based diet. There are certainly clinical studies suggesting that there may be cancer therapeutic effects, but those studies are all in progress and I don't think there's there is not scientific consensus that sulforaphane is a cancer therapy or therapeutic.
Attic certainly, so it would be irresponsible to suggest that my bias is that I certainly think that it is valuable in a cancer preventive lifestyle trying to prevent cancers from starting. So if you're diagnosed with cancer, especially if it's metastasized, it may actually not be wise to take sulphur of a nor to supplement or two to go heavy on on Broccoli. We just honestly we just
No enough. We do know that up regulating Nrf2 protects protects cells and when you think about it metastasized cancers, what's happening there? Those cells are growing faster than the rest of the cells around them the rest of the rest of the Body for that matter. If you're an adult they're growing faster producing the products of respiration and oxidation their mitochondria or cranking away. So if you support their mitochondria,
And enhance their ability that enhance their ability to detoxify things including including perhaps Cancer drugs. This may be a slippery slope. We just don't know enough and and there are some animal model studies in which an RF 2 is genetically upregulated or knocked out and I think those studies the results of those studies suggest that caution is advised.
In cases where people have been diagnosed with cancer my hopefully a lot more to come on that from studies that are underway and in progress in various parts of the world.
And just to add on as a comment, you know speaking to prevention. I know there's been there's that some of the preclinical evidence that really excited me was there's a rat study and I forget the group that published a study but the rats were given so far Fein they were given it before they were given a chemical that causes bladder cancer and the other group of rats were just given the chemical that causes bladder cancer and the Rat
That were given the dose of the sulforaphane did not develop bladder cancer. And when and if they did the tumors were much much smaller in size. So again preventative, you know, just more evidence that the preventative approach seems to be stronger. There's also been the clinical evidence. It seems as though and your and you know better about this jet about you know, the tissues that sulforaphane may accumulate in more
You know the bladder prostate breast versus other tissues or lungs, you know it I don't even know if we know all the differences but the prostate seems to be one that that at least clinically there's been a few studies showing that sulforaphane ranging in DOS the higher the dose the more robust the effect. So 60 milligrams of sulfur paint a day was shown to slow the the biomarker prostate specific antigen or PSA which people with you know early
State cancer, you know or risk of it or whatever have and so slowing that by 86% is certainly, you know, a good thing.
Yeah. So as a follow-up shame on you, I think that first bladder cancer study you were talking about is also on that. I was involved
I said, I've been following your work because your Ella every study so pretty much every study that eyesight almost Jen Fahey. Dr. John Fahey is an author on so it's just slow mo so prolific
I can't keep track of all your Publications
dead mostly on mine on minor player. So in this case a minor player group in New Zealand Rex Monday and old old colleague. Actually the guy who was Paul tell I put sulforaphane on the map. You should Zhang and I did this did one of the one of the Rat studies I think maybe the one you're talking about with bladder cancer. And absolutely this was this was benzyl isothiocyanate as I
All that we used earlier or send a grin allies of thiocyanate which come from radish or daikon or Mustard Seed. So it's worth dwelling on this but when you think about what happens with sulforaphane, which most of you I don't know most of you don't I do probably too much to my detriment. But what happened you ingest it you take it in the body sees it your cells of your body see it.
They actually take it in very rapidly. They conjugate it with glutathione. They spit it back out. Then where does it go? Because from the blood to the urine then where does the urine go unless you're on a Foley catheter and most of us that are reasonably healthy aren't although. I've had that fun experience before so your bladder stores urine up. What's in that urine sulforaphane and it's conjugates. Well, what is bladder cancer bladder cancer is the epithelial?
Of the bladder that most most of them the tissue lining that bladder mutant, you know a mutation forming and ultimately a tumor developing so bladder cancer. We I still think is the ultimate Target for isothiocyanates because you're bathing that tissue in these protective compounds essentially all the time, you know, you empty your bladder and immediately it starts filling back up again.
Certainly, the prostate cancer is another example where mechanistically or I should say evidentiary really we have there's evidence the cause and effect is a little harder to see but the bladder cancer model is just just beautiful Rhonda who's looking over your
shoulder.
Oh,
sorry. I was just unfair question because I know I know you're not in your normal. Yeah it kitchen spot.
I'm not.
So that was a great digression Jed. Thank you so much. And thank you for all your contributions. Let's let's move on to the next question in this section, which is what are your thoughts if any on the potential social on the potential benefits of sulfur feign or even other isothiocyanate activators of Nrf2 for Alzheimer's disease, there's been just repeating preclinical evidence that amyloid-beta, you know is decreased and that you know, isothiocyanates and so for feign seem to have
Positive effect on outside Alzheimer's disease.
Yeah. So this is a case where I need to give dr. Patrick's listeners data dump of papers. There's a huge amount of literature that you know would be fun to post links to from animal models and cell culture work. Let me start actually. I just found this or I just
Just rediscovered this this morning, let me start by citing a clinical study and then go back to some of the to some of the animal study work. So as all of you know animals mostly rats and mice are used to spare having to do some of these experiments on people and so what usually happens where frequently happens maybe covid-19 is going to be an
And but what frequently happens is you have cell culture work you have or in vitro work where you add chemicals to cultured human cells or animal cells in a Petri plate you get positive effect or not. Then you move to trials where you like it or not sacrifice mice to the cause of Science and you and if you're lucky enough and there's a rodent model of a disease you get some results and then maybe you'll do a preclinical study to verify safety and then
You'll go to a full-fledged clinical study to look at efficacy. So a lot of animal animal studies. I'll get back to a few citations, but there's one now. There's one posted clinical trial in China in zhejiang University and it will be looking at a hundred and six hundred and 60 subjects with early Alzheimer's and they're going to be giving sulforaphane.
It was posted for start date of sometime in May of 2020. I doubt that's happened because of covid most clinical trials are on pause. I do want to make it so you can find this on clinicaltrials.gov. That's a website that categorises all of the u.s. Approved clinical trials and many around the world. You can find it and read about it yourself if you do that.
Be careful because you know, I think this may well be a good and interesting study. But when you look at what they're giving their giving dietary supplement sulforaphane and they say they're giving two thousand five hundred and fifty milligrams once a day and half of the people are getting Placebo. I won't go into the math, but that amount is enough to kill a horse. And so that's between
and a hundred closer to a hundred times what I would recommend giving to a person so my only guess is that they're talking about the weight 2.5 grams or twenty-five hundred milligrams of a supplement tablet and there's no information on this website that lets us know what they're actually giving patients or how much sulforaphane they'll actually be getting but it you know, it it may may well be a very interesting study so we should keep our eyes on it but
But to go back to the to the animal work with a former doctoral student. They need upon Johnny. We did a review a couple of years ago looking at actually all of the neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and Huntington's and the neurodevelopmental diseases like autism and looking at the evidence for solve for a vein and its extensive and you know things like hdac inhibition histone.
Satellite, sorry inhibition enhancement of bdnf brain-derived neurotropic factor certainly reduction in amyloid beta and the list the list really goes on and on the things that other people have done. I have not been directly involved in that then there are a couple of reviews from even more recently from last year, which I'll send to Rhonda, you know talking about for example
Apple sulforaphane protecting cultured neural cells from the toxicity of methylglyoxal which is a precursor of a GES or Advanced glycation end products that are very clearly associated with Alzheimer's disease models that show reduced neuronal cell death due to amyloid-beta exposure due to activation of peroxisomes. These are things that help detoxify, so they're very very long list and
And just the reviews the review articles have pages and pages of evidence. So I will share some of that with Rhonda but it's very encouraging ten years ago. We were Paul tell and I were invited to work with a group in the Netherlands that was going to be a big multicenter Alzheimer's prevention trial using sulforaphane 10 years ago. Well not hard 2011. It was a multi-million dollar trial funding never have I don't know funding.
I'm started and stopped but it never actually happened and I'm not aware of other Western follow-up studies. Its I say I just found this study in China that is being conducted. I should say by some researchers who have done some some good animal model work and published a bit before a lot before so I have high hopes for The China Study, but we'll see
I'm definitely going to continue following the literature as well. I mean, I just keep seeing animal study after animal studies showing you.
A positive effect on sulfur faint with sulforaphane on Alzheimer's disease. So let's move on to the next section the sprouting Logistics. The question is many people ask this question in one form another. Can you clarify whether it's necessary to sprout broccoli seeds or if you can get sulforaphane by just blending and eating the seeds you mentioned in the last episode with dr. Fahy that you would try to try this. I'm curious why anyone would bother sprouting them if eating chopped-up seeds works just as well.
Well, yeah, it's a great question and I noticed that question echoed a lot in your those that have been sent in by by listeners, you know, it's correct. You could get you would get the highest levels of glucose or a fan and from just eating broccoli seeds. I think there's also a possibility of getting an overload of erucic acid. Although people do supplement with omega-9 fatty acids, which is what a root.
Ruzek acid is but they're certainly we could have a whole just maybe we should have a whole discussion of erucic acid. So you would get a lot of that. So broccoli seeds are about a third fat or Oils and they're very rich and erucic acid. Secondly, they taste awful some may disagree. Some people may be less sensitive to them. But if you just grind up broccoli seeds and eat them they don't taste.
They don't taste very good. And in fact when Paul tally and I did our first publication on Broccoli Sprouts, we very consciously, I mean we knew that it was broccoli seeds which had the very highest levels of glucoraphanin and they declined as you sprouted those deeds on a fresh weight basis until the you know, they plateaued for a couple of weeks very low and then they started to climb again when the broccoli plant started to make flowers and seeds.
And we very consciously decided to try to promote broccoli Sprouts. First of all, because we knew that nobody ate broccoli seeds or Sprouts at that time second of all because broccoli Sprouts were green and at least some people like the taste of sprouts and eat them regularly not very many, but I don't know of any culture or group or reports of people that eat broccoli seeds regularly, and I know there are no clinical trials on the use of them.
That said the broccoli Sprouts broccoli supplements sulforaphane rich or glucoraphanin. Bridge supplements are generally made. I know that Braska protection products makes there's from seeds. But when you think about that you boil seeds you leave the fat fraction behind and you just get the water-soluble glue carafe and and out and then they dry it down and various ways. And and and you have a very gluco raft.
Rich supplement that doesn't have any fat in it so I know short answer sure you could eat broccoli seed you have to be careful of how much you ate and careful. You didn't get too much erucic acid
as a rookie is erucic acid toxic. I mean is it is it something that can have negative health effects,
you know, I really not at all the an expert on erucic acid, but certainly
There it's been shown. I mean, I believe Lorenzo's Oil is is very rich in that its present in rapeseed oil, which certainly people people aid for many years. Now, they canola oil which has had the erucic acid removed. I mean, it's been associated with cardiac toxicities and some animal studies, but I think the jury is sort of is still out on the
Humans, you know, can you I think there's a chance you can get too much if you really just started eating broccoli seeds and I think sooner or later they'll be more studies done with them. If you there was a question earlier or there's a question on the on the your list of questions. That was that actually itemized. I'm looking at that I'm reading that now that actually itemized the
levels of erucic acid in broccoli seeds Sprouts or florets sprouts and seeds and they said that the levels are .8 320 and twelve thousand milligrams per hundred grams respectively. This is one of your listeners. I didn't sorry I didn't catch too. So if you use those numbers as a guideline, they again your listeners.
Just that you would get a lot more erucic acid than is in the estimated or then this in the the consumption guidelines. And so you'd expect you to exceed the calculated exposure limit for erucic acid. So I didn't dig into that and research their your listeners facts, but I'm assuming that they're correct. And yeah, I think you might get too much
seems like the safe thing to do in at least in my
Opinion would be to sprout and because there's just more there's been more evidence and it would it seems like it could be easy to take the wrong dose if you're grinding up seeds. And so
yeah it to sprout to sprout or supplement. I mean for implementing supplementing you have the added advantage of you know, again, I'm going to be in the best of possible worlds. Yeah, you'll get a known quantity and with lousy.
Laments you get less than oh, you'll get less than that quantity that they say they have because there's there are a lot of snake oil salesman selling crappy products
out there. Yeah, and we have to that question in a minute. So the next question is broccoli Sprouts still the best way to get sulforaphane how to maximize production in the Sprouts freeze them. Steep them both. Let them sit after blending to allow myrosinase to react with the glucoraphanin.
Yeah, so if your home sprouting and you know what the glue carafe and content of your seeds are that's great. But I've already warned you you probably won't be able to know what the content is. It's very difficult to know. So if you're blending them up you want to do you want to do that just before consuming them. You can't blend up a concoction once a week and then put in the refrigerator and go in for a few gulps, you know every now and then throughout the week.
Excuse me, if you if you freeze them that's fine. You can blend them and freeze them and then eat them immediately eat that that blind date immediately after thawing that's fine. If you're you know, if
you're in town, wait, would you freeze the sprouts and then blend them immediately after and then consume
them or honestly, honestly, you could do either I'm caught you'll cross the nation will stay active.
Of and start it won't be very active in the freezer probably inactive but it'll start working again. When you when you thaw when you saw that that paste or whatever whatever, you know, the concoction-- so, you know, if you're intent on getting a specific if you want to eat healthy and get some sulforaphane that I think eating broccoli Sprouts or smoothies made from them or you know, we've talked about
some of the modes of delivery is great. If you want to get a known dose of sulforaphane then probably your best to go to a high-quality supplement. But and then there's the question of commercially grown Sprouts, which we maybe can get into in another in another sort of this has to do with cleanliness or sanitation of sprouts. But so, you know, there's I think there's more
It's of holding manufacturers accountable. If you're taking a supplement or there will be in the future. Hopefully if you're just if you're buying seeds and making your own Sprouts, unless you get them tested for glucoraphanin Content. You really not going to know you're not going to know how active the salt the myrosinase might be in those Sprouts either that that said I'm not trying to discourage anybody from doing it at all. I think it's a great idea and its cost and eggs as
well. For sure people. Some people can't afford supplements.
It's
be cost-effective. And if I need to give a shout out to my new friend Doug Evans who has this book that he just he just wrote and it's being translated in multiple languages and its Excellence called this called the Sprout book. I think God I'm blanking on the name of his book, but he you know, he Advocates Sprouts from a nutritional perspective and he does I think he has a chapter that talks about our work and that of others showing medicinal
Or preventive qualities of broccoli Sprouts. He's very generous talking about our work but his bottom line is it's cheap. It's effective. It's highly nutritious. You get all the fiber, you know, you get the vegetable fiber if you eat the Sprouts, which you don't get with supplements and you know, you get vitamins and you get minerals and blah blah blah, but he makes a very good case I think for and and I think he not to be disrespectful, but I
I think he lives on sprouts. I don't know if he eats anything but Sprouts so so but he has some good he has some good methodology and he talks about other kinds of sprouts. Whereas in the guide that I helped put together for you around and we just talked about broccoli Sprouts. So yeah,
I sort of related question is people are a sort of asking about the taste of broccoli sprouts. For example, you know if you're if
You blend this process together and drink it as I have done in the past. It's really not very pleasant tasting. I mean, it's got like a spicy taste. I like spicy. So it's kind of got that Wasabi kick, but not a lot of people like that and there are some some parents that are trying to give sulforaphane or and or broccoli sprouts and some form another to their children and autistic children who seem to be very picky eaters most of the time is there any
Recommendations for like making it better tasting and a smoothie something that's not going to affect the bioavailability of
sulforaphane. Yeah. So yeah, I think there are as I think they come from our some of our clinical studies where we had to camouflage The Taste or in court, you know, we had to incorporate broccoli Sprouts into something that was palatable. For more people. I saw the Smoothie question and my
My off-the-cuff response would be hey look at me. I come from a generation that didn't know smoothies where we're a food group. And you know, they weren't part of my staple diet most a lot of people in the younger Generations. I think think smoothies are a man mandatory good food. I do takes I do eat take drink smoothies sometimes and it is a good it is
that's a good option to incorporate the vegetable broccoli sprouts and to disguise her camouflage it with some other taste. So couple of ways to answer your question when we when we did our trials and China we had to come up with disguising mechanisms. And first we use mango juice. This was a bunch of phds getting together and saying well, how does this taste? How's this taste? And we pick mango juice. We were all Americans doing this test in America and
Used to very sweet stuff in America. We took it to China where they're not where the pallets are not accustomed to such sweet taste and they didn't like it very much but our study subject. So we then did some rather extensive studies with flavor Analysis company sensory Analysis company in New Jersey. We actually published on this and they helped us identify pineapple juice with a hint of lime juice in it, and you can even dilute it.
what we did with our next China Study was to dilute it one to one with water and it and it turned out to be a really good disguiser of the taste or complementor of the taste of broccoli sprouts and it's sort of its it takes your taste buds in your mind away from The Taste, which a lot of people don't find very pleasant terms of the autism part of the question in a number of the clinical trials we've done on autism we of course had to use
We didn't give them broccoli Sprouts. That would have been way too difficult that you're right. A lot of kids with autism people with Autism have very very rigid food preferences and sometimes very narrow. But what we did is give them supplements with a calibrated amount of sulforaphane and then we gave each of the parents just the five dollar Amazon hand pill crusher so they could crush the pill and add it to whatever the favorite food of that child was in the case.
S of the studies we did so yeah, they wound up camouflaging both taste and texture. It's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So let's move on to the next question and the question has to do with a recent study that claimed microwaving cook microwave microwaving broccoli was able to increase levels of sulfur Fame in the broccoli. And yeah, what are your thoughts on that study
run?
I don't like being negative about other people studies, but I don't like it. So respectfully, you know, I think they said a number of things that were that are misleading. Maybe not maybe not wrong, but they sort of get you down the wrong Garden Path to truth. So first of all, when you harvest broccoli Sprouts or broccoli you or a farmer they don't have any sulforaphane in them. They don't have any free sulforaphane. It's all glucoraphanin, which is the precursor.
shrub sulforaphane myrosinase converts one to the other happens when you start chewing it happens in your gut we've talked about that microwaving is merely a gentle method by which one cooks and you can you can try to minimize denaturing or destruction of myrosinase with microwaving and and there's evidence that there's you know,
May not completely Wipe Out the myrosinase if you don't get the internal temperature of the food product up above 70 or 80 degrees 10 degrees Centigrade Celsius microwaving also gives you minimum leakage of plant juice. So, you know when you steam the hell out of something or boil. It's a vegetable, you know, most of the goodies come out in the wash. They come had in the pot liquor, right? So so microwaving is useful.
There but they State don't have it in front of you. They stayed something like like increase the levels of sulforaphane and broccoli. You do not increase the levels of either sulforaphane or glucoraphanin by a cooking method whatsoever. You may enhance it you may retard its destruction. You may retard its loss or limit its loss. But the other thing is they have a couple of figures in that paper that suggests and you know, I should talk.
To the author's perhaps and take my beef to them. But they suggest that the controls have far less glucoraphanin in in them. Then the treatments the different microwave times that can't that can't be so it's impossible. I'm promise you that you don't create glucoraphanin out of whole cloth. You don't make you don't magically create it so so I'm not very
If there's enough that worries me about that paper that I would sort of steer clear of it and just say yeah indeed microwaving if you're going to cook broccoli microwaving is probably the best way to do it minimal microwaving make it nice and a little tender and soft and and minimize the leakage of compounds into the pot liquor or else incorporate that into whatever you're eating and that's the way I make broccoli, you know, rinse it put it in a corning.
Put it in the microwave until it just gets a little less crunchy and and eat it and there's basically nothing in the bottom and I put lemon
juice on it. I do the same thing. I microwave my broccoli but I put Mustard Seed powder and just just an FYI for everyone viewing right now and we're listening when that paper came out. The first thing I did was emailed Jed and I was like, what do you think of this paper? So
what about what I say, I
forgot we weren't he were
Bleah Al SPC about it to me, but thanks for your expert opinion on that. I think that that that can be it. That is a misleading study next. The last question in this section has to do with storing broccoli Sprouts. So once they're grown in a big batch, if you grow them in a big batch, sorry, what's the best way to store them in the freezer or the refrigerator? How long can they be frozen or how long can they be refrigerated and still be potent?
So good question you grow them. How do you harvest them harvesting is taking the jar. This jar has water but this is one of my sprouting jars you take this jar and you put it in the refrigerator. What does that do? It slows the growth rate of the Sprouts down to very very slow crawl. So they don't they don't increase in size very much. You would leave them in the refrigerator. I leave in the refrigerator for a short time a few days two or three days only.
after that time, they need more and more risk that whatever bacteria are associated with those Sprouts when you grow them are going to start to proliferate they get sort of rank and gungi after, you know, certainly a week in the refrigerator and my experience and you've certainly seen that if you bought Sprouts in the grocery store, they get you know, sometimes half of the three quarters of the Sprouts in the Sprout little tiny Sprout part of the supermarket or Rank and I wouldn't want to touch
Them they just spoil very quickly if you're going to keep him for a long time and you make a large batch by far the easiest way to preserve them. I think is to spread them out on a cookie tray or a you know, baking tin put wax paper on it if you want and quick freeze them and then when you quick freeze them you can bundle and put them in a bag or container and then you can keep them for you know weeks or even months myrosinase will remain active.
I mean, we haven't done kill curves to see how many weeks of freezing broccoli sprouts in a home freezer will work but home freezers do have a freeze thaw saira defrost cycle and that may actually allow the Sprouts to keep on sort of following a little bit and myrosinase may activate and then you may sort of use it up to be sort of the 30,000 foot view of what might happen there. So I wouldn't keep him from more than a
month or two in the freezer. But yeah,
really great really great suggestions Jed cool. So let's move on to some of the the questions relating to the alternatives to broccoli sprouting. So the first question is in previous discussions around sulforaphane and broccoli Sprouts, Moringa has come up but mentioned have similar benefits. This person says that their family has six Moringa trees in Mexico and they consume large handfuls of Moringa leaves.
In their smoothie. Is there any research to indicate that the most bioavailable way to consume Moringa for example, the leaves dried and powdered frozen leaves Etc.
Yeah, I was glad to see that question and I saw someone else made some comment about that picture of you and me in the your podcast you one of us was holding a bag of Moringa Seeds and they were they were right that's we had been talking about it as you put your coat on to leave that was cut that was Forever Ago Street three years ago for for yeah
when I was pregnant, but didn't tell anyone. No one knew I was pregnant with my son.
Anyways, I remember learning of that when we met you in San Diego and so I was glad to see the question because indeed Moringa leaf powder is sort of my go-to. I am on the scientific Advisory Board of cooly cooly, which makes Moringa leaf powder. So I've got a I've got a free supply of Moringa leaf powder from them, but but it also means that I know a good bit now about the quality and the supply chain of dried Moringa leaves.
There, you know if you live in the tropics their ideal because you can grow the trees anywhere. If you don't live in the tropics fresh leaves are not nearly as good they don't they don't freeze and and travel very they don't refrigerate and travel very well at all. So dried powdered leaves are great, which is why a number of companies have been able to make a business of selling dried powdered leaves and this country. We did a few papers. We've done a number of papers on Moringa. We never had any funding for it. Really
It or not any to speak of because this is not a tropical country and the funding agencies aren't as interested in it. But one of the things we did is is experimented with Moringa teas and found that both hot and cold teas are you know are great and it's sort of modifies that sharp Taste of the moringa leaf powder in terms of efficacy the isothiocyanate from Moringa. It's called it's called moringa.
In and there was a long scientific name, I won't bore you with but in many assays it's even better than sulforaphane and in others is not as good, you know, it depends on the assay and so on but because of that I am very bullish about Moringa has possibilities on the other hand because it has not been nearly as heavily researched. You know, there's far less we can say about it from a
All perspective but and the the person we asked this question would appreciate this. It's been grown and eaten Moringa leaves have been grown and eaten for centuries literally by populations in the tropics around the world very safely. So the safety of Moringa leaf powder is or then Moringa leaves is is absolutely well documented. There aren't many clinical studies for
Indications, but they're coming because the interest has really grown in them. So I do use Moringa leaf powder makeup Moringa tea all the time and I recommend it. I think there is the I copied down the the the question that was one of the questions that was asked about Moringa and that person said they've been cold Brewing 1 teaspoon of powder in 1 cup of water for 30 minutes to great effect.
I feel amazing after taking it. We are working. I should use that as a launching Point say we are working on that that sort of comment. I feel amazing after taking it that's obviously an anecdote. I appreciate it and I see it all the time. We're trying with some clinical studies were putting together now to to better document those sorts of statements, you know, I feel amazing and I have way more energy are the ones I hear all the time.
So we're going to be trying to document those anecdotes that are attributed to both broccoli sprouts and supplements and Moringa with some some hard hard evidence. So anyway, yeah, they're safe to eat in good for you and I'd encourage their use but
to comment said why not just my own anecdote. I've been putting Moringa powder from coolie coolie in my smoothies and I also feel great, but I also feel great without the meringue powder in the smoothie.
But the interesting thing I have noticed with Moringa powder and this has been repeatable. I've been wearing a continuous glucose monitor for about three years now and the hardcore hardcore so hardcore, you know idea but get my typical smoothie is a little bit of kale and blueberries avocado and collagen powder and adding the moringa powder in there the ring of power.
Where are the blueberries does it doesn't really raised my glucose levels much of the Smoothie itself without the moringa powder, you know brings me to about postprandial glucose like 105 and the moringa powder consistently lowers that by I don't know seven to ten units don't have any idea what's going on mechanistically. I'm sure someone's going to study it and there's been some interesting research on type 2 diabetes and I don't want to go there because we have to get to safety which is a really important chunk of this.
But I thought that was an interesting anecdote. The second comment is there was a Live question. Sorry, go ahead.
Absolutely. So you can't say something like that and not have me interrupt and say yeah, so the biggest medical indication for Moringa leaf powder is going to be it is I think diabetes and that has that camera. No not that is under active investigation blood glucose control. You can't have no no, we have a review that shows there. They were sick.
It's not all good studies at all. And they were all tiny showing an effect of Marengo Moringa leaves are wearing Leaf Pat we can talk about that another time. I've even talked about it on a
podcast and of one was, you know, actually probably
real very interesting now if all if all hundred million of your viewers are wearing glucose glucose monitors, we can put them together and have a study
someone was asking in the chat and a lot of people were asking to address this question John.
You're Gregor from nutritionfacts.org. I guess allegedly mentioned something about not eating Moringa leaves and they didn't he didn't say why he didn't give any evidence at all. Do you have any idea why you would say that that was a question that just popped up in the chat. So
the only the only answer I can give you would be nasty and I refuse I refuse I refuse to pay so yeah, I don't have I don't have any idea why he might say that except for the fact maybe that the database he
doesn't have a clue.
I don't know.
So well, I just don't want to say anything. He's done a decent job of translating some of our work to you know in his podcast, but I don't know. Sorry.
I have no idea either
so we can both look into it and get back to that listener may be but
all right the next question, which I'm sure a lot of people are waiting to hear the answer to that. I've seen this question many many times. The question is what brands of sulfur faint supplements. Do you consider?
reliable
Okay, the story there requires again. I've given it to you my disclosure. I started a company with my mentor and his son and the company still being run press protection products. But and they make broccoli broccoli seed extract that go into a variety of supplements. I know that and I also based on my you know, grandfatherly love of the company.
You know, I'm trying to help do good things. Now that I've retired. I know that the the vendors or the supplement makers that they sell their stuff to by and large do a good job and make good products and my lab before I retired has tested many of those products and found that if they say they have X milligrams of glucoraphanin in their product. Yeah, they've got at least that in there and so they're good supplements.
As I mentioned there are a lot of supplements that are pure crap that don't have what they say they have in fortunately. I'm not aware of any of those that are well some say that I am aware of some of them that are widely sold and probably people are taking but I can so I've commented on brands that I would know that I know and that I would trust on our website at www.export.gov org.
They're in the fa Q's of that website and you know specifically I can provide links but they're easy to find. I know that crew Sarah SGS by Thorn is good has what it says has on complex, which is made by a company called zymogen AB McCall, which is made by nutramax Swanson has a vision defense product that's decent orthomolecular has something called my Decor Max International.
Has something called Max and fuse which is a drink. I believe the yeah it is. So I mean these are these are mostly gelcaps tablet. Gel. The first two weeks that I mentioned are gelcaps. The ab McCall is a tablet Vision defense. I can't remember but it's a supplement for Eye Health. So it's got other things in it. So these are all good. I'm not endorsing them in the sense that you know, I'm not associated with any
As companies but I've I've talked to some of them. I've used some of their products and clinical studies that we've published or that we're on them getting ready to publish. I would stick with I would stick with a supplement that someone like me says decent things about and I only say that because if you take some of the shoddy or supplements you may wind up just making expensive urine and and meaning, you know, you'll deal.
Spend 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 dollars for a bottle and yeah, you'll you'll you'll not get the benefits you do that that you hope for
just a follow-up to on that. I know of the supplements that you mentioned that AB McCall has stabilized sulforaphane in the in it do any of the other supplements or they just all
glucoraphanin know? It doesn't actually that's not that's not correct.
has myrosinase I think all of those companies are going to move towards adding myrosinase to their to their mixes, but of course don't know that, you know, I think they're all decent products and we've done trials with an with thorns grew Sarah with zymogens on complex with nutramax is at Mccall some of the there are a lot of chemicals that are a number of clinical
all studies that are going to be coming out or are in press using AB McCall with autism and schizophrenia, but it's not to say that those are the best supplements. They I think they're decent supplements and they have active myrosinase. That's true. I think getting you know, we talked about this when we talked about dosing but we probably didn't talk about it enough. Your your listeners should know that you know, if you're counting on your guts my Ross and your
Personal tracks myrosinase to do all of the conversion for a supplement. You're probably going to take a higher level of glucoraphanin. And if you're if you're getting a product that has myrosinase in it, you don't need as much glue carafe and because some of that conversions theoretically going to happen based on what you've provided in the supplement tablet if you were supplementing with sulforaphane, and I know there are a number of questions about this with stabilized sulforaphane. So, let me jump ahead to
the
that I cross the fingers crossed a faint have stabilized sulforaphane
process things. The only product that I know that reliably has the what they say. They have of sulforaphane the amount they say they have and it is stable. But it's a it's a European product. It's a French product. I think I think it's fair to say that it's difficult very difficult. In fact to get it in this country to buy it and
You know because it is European product how effed it doesn't fall under the purview of our FDA. So, you know, you can say all the nasty stuff you want about our regulators and about our FDA and there are plenty of negative things that have been said about them, but they do have some oversight capacity and and although they don't do a good job of regulating the paste on the law that governs them. They don't do much in terms of regulating quality of dietary supplements.
It's at least they have they have some power over over the industry. So, you know, I wish there were there was more stabilized all for vain various people are working on it. We've done some there's a there there's a company in England that has something that's not a non-natural synthetic sulforaphane that they've stabilized. We've actually done some experiments with that type of sulforaphane and
I found that there are some adverse side effects. So I certainly wouldn't recommend that. So yeah, it's a work in progress again and companies and universities are looking to ways to stabilize sulforaphane. It's a very unstable molecule inherently, which is one of the reasons why it does what it does in your body. So it's difficult to deliver. It's difficult to stabilize which is why the plant has you know focuses on storing.
Ooh carafe and and then it converts it when it needs it because after all it's a fight it's a defensive plant chemical and we when we take supplements I think are well advised to take glucoraphanin and myrosinase unless and until someone does a better job of stabilizing sulforaphane
itself.
Great. Thanks for all that really good advice and insight on the well, we'll post a list of those supplements in the in the show notes and we post it on the website, but I do want to move on to the safety question because the safety section because it's pretty important section as well. The first question says it was submitted and said I watched this short video of Paul saladino and Joe Rogan about eating veggie.
It said that swimming in cold water has the same effect as eating sulforaphane. I think we need some expert opinion on this video. So I'm just going to kind of calm. I'm going to jump in here first on this and say first of all cold exposure has actually been shown to decrease the Nrf2 pathway and animal studies heat exposure like from something like the sauna or even exercise does increase the Nrf2 pathway.
Yeah, but not as at least I don't think it does. So as robustly as sulfur Fane and similarly sulfur Fane can increase heat shock proteins, but heat increases heat shock proteins more robustly. In other words. There's a lot of common denominators between some of these you know, what what I what we've talked about before is hormetic stressors, but they are possibly doing so in different tissues and they're doing so at different levels and honestly,
King of molecular Pathways like Nrf2 it's you know, while the discussion of enter of to or the effects of Nrf2 at the molecular level is very interesting and a fun part of the story people can become very sidetracked and I think that you know molecular biology is so complex and if we're going to talk about it, we also have to zoom out. We can look at more concrete evidence more real-world things clinical endpoints, like for example, sulforaphane can increase the the excretion of
Benzene by sixty percent after 24 hours as we discussed it has effects on you know, increasing glutathione the plasma and the Brain those sorts of you know, positive therapeutic effects that have been seen in people with Autism and it's also not clear that when we compare exercise to a phytochemical whether or not we're even if we are activating similar genetic Pathways such as Nrf2 and maybe in very different tissues, you know, the activation levels could differ dramatically and I really
Thanks, I think saying something can break down to this intervention can replace magically replace. This other intervention comes out, you know, it comes out when someone's trying to oversell a meet agenda with that said
Jed do you have anything to say about?
Out cold shock being the same as or even saw an erection as being the same as taking sulforaphane.
Yeah. I've got a ton. Let me speak even faster than before because I don't want us to run out of time without having a chance to weigh in on this. So yeah, thank you Rhonda. I did I you forced me to watch that that clip of saladino and Rogue and I would not have otherwise been watching it. But um, you know my my reaction to it, I made a couple of notes eyes. Yeah. I don't swim in cold water many.
Don't and can't I'd much rather eat good food tasty food than physically torture myself. I'm sure Coldwater immersion has benefits but and it make as you said, you said it very well may coincidently affect some biochemical Pathways that sulforaphane does also but I guarantee you that the multiplicity of effects of Sulphur pain is not the same as that from a public health perspective, which is where I spent so many years and you may not like
Like my saying this Rhonda because you're a fitness hacker. You wear a glucose monitor for you know, three years in a row, but most of the world are not Fitness hackers most of the world, you know, we're privileged here in this country and we're not going to get into politics. But we are we have far more disposable income than the rest of the world were the richest country in the world and we have gym memberships and saunas and we can buy supplements and we can get good food Whole Foods and on and on and on.
We could take saunas and we can dive into cold water bath so we can you know, go swimming the rest of the world can't do that. Think about the tropics. Where do you go to take bracing cold water bath. Give me a freakin break. So it's fine for people, you know with disposable income as we all everybody in this podcast based on the fact that you have a computer. We're very well-off but most of the tropics and a lot of the tropics, you know net.
Alien comes a few dollars a day. They're lucky if they get water to drink don't talk about, you know, saunas and hot water and cold water swims. So the multiplicity of effects you touched so end of that rant, but the the multiplicity of effects of Sulphur thing that you mentioned are I'm glad you brought up the fact that Nrf2 is not the only thing in the world. There's the anti-inflammatory effect of sulforaphane. There's a heat shock inducing effect antibacterial effect selective.
There's an anti-virus direct antiviral effect. Uh, what what epic are we in now the Epica viral pandemics, there are there are a number of very good papers showing an antiviral effect. There is immune boosting effect of sulforaphane blood vessel dilation cardiovascular disease and and ischemia reperfusion. Injury AG. He's Advanced glycation end-products detoxification cell cycle arrest apoptosis nerdy.
Duration and neurodevelopmental protection which we touched on promotion of mitochondrial function and integrity. So this is an energy play and much more is being learned about that brain health cognition stress resilience, it goes on and on and on and the literature is robust, whereas it is not for either cold therapy are carnivores. Mm. I would like you mentioned and then certainly in this clip they talked about
The carnivore lifestyle I actually made notes of a number of things. I'd like to rebut or comment on in terms of that part of the little clip. I watched if if we have time for me to say a few things about it. I
let's let's talk a little bit about the the effects that were that have been said by saladino and others about sulforaphane being going to genic in other words having a negative effect on the thyroid. I have some comments there, but can you go ahead and speak to that is so for
Vein treatment.
No, it's not
maybe not in itself. But yeah, I suppose a certain isothiocyanate. Do
you want yes, so it's not and and nor our broccoli Sprouts when eaten in moderation or are glucoraphanin RIT supplements mature broccoli. I mean, this is a this is this is a long story but mature broccoli broccoli produces different glucosinolates indifferent face.
Phases of its lifestyle and Market stage broccoli our heads of broccoli florets do have things called Endo glucosinolates when they are acted on by myrosinase they can form they form unstable intermediate and they can form compounds which can be toxic or going to regenexx and maybe even promote certain cancers depending upon if they're administered before or after a person gets exposed to the carcinogen. There's a lot of literature.
Cancerous on based on animal studies on that and I think the jury is still out on the beneficial effects of eating of those compounds, but the byproducts of endo glucosinolate metabolism are among others are things called indole-3-carbinol and die in DeLisle methane. It's really the subject I think for another another discussion but in but I want to bring it back to broccolis.
Droughts and sulforaphane. And so we did this 12-week study in China that I told you about well collaborators. I'm not an author of this co-author this most recent study, but they took some of the they took the blood samples from this 12-week study where we gave them sulforaphane from broccoli sprouts and looked at indicators of thyroid thyroid status hormone status and autoimmune status and
That absolutely no negative effect on the thyroid function. So that's three months of continuous ingestion of sulforaphane. That's definitely the longest effect. That's study that's looked at thyroid specific the potential side effects. But this is the author first author's name is chart tune pekus and it was to 2019 and you know, this is this is someone whose specialty is thyroid thyroid function has published quite
Widely on it and there was no effect. So yeah. Yeah, and that was a
great study. I mean three months is a long time and you certainly would think that after three months of taking continuous broccoli sprout extract every day. If there was going to be a negative effect on the thyroid you would see it after 3 months moreover the in 2018. There was a very long term animal study in rats where there were two groups of rats or some rats that were that had hypothyroidism drug-induced hypothyroidism.
I'm not there was an iodine deficient group of rats and they were they were given broccoli Sprouts freeze-dried or whatever, you know broccoli sprout extract and Not only was there no harmful effect on the thyroid even in iodine deficient animals in terms of their high thyroid homeostasis. So there th their thyroid stimulating hormone 334. We're all the same in the animals there in the rats that had
Hypothyroidism there was a beneficial effect from the broccoli Sprouts in the thyroid gland and antioxidant effect. That was beneficial. So to say that it's a great region and going to have negative effects on the on the thyroid. It's quite funny because you see this sort of echo chamber meme going around particularly in groups that are anti plant and they just have it all wrong complete lack of understanding and not even looking at actual good data,
so, you know,
You know interestingly this persists in the medical community to so in one of our studies the autism study that we published in 2014 the there were questions from the IRB which is made up of among other things positions about potential for thyroid thyroid issues. And where we going to monitor thyroid chemistry, and we did and we went through the same explanation sort of that. I just did with you and so in that study
Uh D after the 12-week 12-week study with a follow-up or 16 week. I guess I have to review my own papers, but daily consumption. This was with autistic kids not perfectly normal healthy subjects, but there were there were we followed thyroid chemistry. And as I recall there were a couple of times when thyroid function was flagged and they went up being and placebos those of that are getting placebo.
So yeah, I mean it's a concern that keeps on coming up but with Market stage broccoli, it's a valid question to ask. Can you get too much markets age? Broccoli? Perhaps. Yeah, but um and there are areas where water is endemic and those people eat a hell of a lot of cabbage right there also are certain things like arsenic in the soils there. So the
Cabbage right exactly. I mean there's a lot of confounding factors and cabbage is not broccoli Sprouts exactly mention there's car.
Any glucoraphanin and cabbage? So the other question also was related to saladino. And the question was how do you respond to Paul? Saladin has claims on Joe Rogan's podcast that the risks of sulforaphane outweigh the
benefits. Okay. We do we have from now till close
11:30. Yeah, we've got we've got 14 minutes.
Okay, so I have I made a short little list.
Of nine points. I don't want to go through them in detail. But I love each. Let me just sort of take them off I guess so I think on multiple levels it's bad advice to the carnivore lifestyle is bad advice human beings didn't evolve as caught up as carnivores. We're omnivores. That means we need a variety of vegetable and and me and you know, this is this is a product of evolution. You can look at tooth and mouth and jaw structure.
And all sorts of other anatomical things is clear. We didn't evolve to be carnivores and I think a self-anointed fitness and or nutrition Guru is not going to change the course of human evolution in a generation in you know, calm Sensations claims or not. But the bottom line is there is there's certain Dogma scientific dogma and evolution our Evolution as human beings is something that they're not
Not going to be able to rewrite. So anyway, there's an abundance of so this is I you and I agreed we weren't going to talk Politics on this but this is I feel like a politician that was first point second Point. There's a debarred number two. There's an abundance of peer-reviewed scientific literature showing diet rich in fruits and vegetables and especially cruciferous vegetables are good. I'm not aware of credible long-term studies supporting Carnival carnivorous lifestyle.
The carnivore approach for humans three the risks eating everything and certainly for you know variety is the spice of life certainly eating broccoli Sprouts only to the exclusion of everything else would be terrible for you. So but that's not what anybody's advocating point for studies of phytochemicals and isolation and in fight in food matrices.
He's and unlimited combinations with other phytochemicals vitamins minerals Etc. Show Almost without exception that yes, some things are Frank toxins think about nicotine their toxic and pretty much any level and the toxicity goes up most most many phytochemical not most but many phytochemicals have a U-shaped effects curve hormesis or a hormetic effect. So spanning from no effect at very low.
These two perhaps benefit or satisfying the requirement to harm or toxicity at the highest level, you know, everything's toxic at some level water is sugar is salted and so for a faint is so I think the evidence is overwhelming though that that eating a lot of broccoli or broccoli Sprouts is not as is not harmful for you. There's we talked about the the extensive evidence of
all sorts of Pathways that are upregulated protective Pathways. It's thoroughly documented in the literature and the subject of many clinical studies now good clinical studies and some bad ones number six long-term consumption of sulforaphane Rich broccoli sprout beverages. We've talked about have been shown not to have negative effects including on thyroid function number 7, we look at
Notes. Yeah, okay meet only diets. Think about it. You get a lot of fiber from a meat only diet know what about fiber and colon cancer. You get a lot of vitamin C from a meat only diet. No think about scurvy. Do you get too much iron? And I meet only diet and therefore more oxidative stress or at least unless you unless you're eating only grass-fed Meats. Yeah. Our is a
meet only diet pro-inflammatory. Well, maybe so there are a lot of negatives that I'm not the world's expert on. I'm not claiming to be but I think on balance they speak to Extreme Caution and endorsing that sort of lifestyle and then I just finally one of your one of your members one of your listeners made a comment which I'd like to read and I agree with it and and it's it was Brad. Hi Brad if you're there and you said Doctor saladino made claims that
Many claims that are not backed up by most of the scientific Community or gold standard peer-reviewed studies while Some Day. Some of those claims may be proven correct. He seems to have current currently have very flimsy evidence. There are no long-lived cultures that live on a predominantly meat-based diet true. I think end of story and we actually have time for some other questions. So that would be great so we can talk more about it, but I think I think the points been made by both you and me that this is not something that
that people ought to flock to
In terms of this guy's this guy's advice. Yeah. Yeah, so we did talk about little bit about uric acid already and that because that was also a question with the with the safety. So I
think we're is a rusik acid years ago. I said, yeah
because me and there was a question about consuming too much the upper limit in terms of broccoli Sprouts are supplements may be
Hmm,
so I mean in terms of an upper limit. Yeah, we I think we touched we touched on it I think and I think I said this in the in the sprouting PDF that I that we just did I I've you food consumption as very much a matter of taste. I mean, you're not just choking down medicine. So people are going to limit their
Consumption of broccoli Sprouts or Market stage broccoli and I think as a from my observations a practical limit is that people that do eat Sprouts are not going to eat more than a couple of ounces maybe 3 or 4 ounces at most in a serving in a meal of broccoli Sprouts. I'm not wild about the taste of them myself. I do eat them, but but
So I think there's an auto limitation to the sort of ceiling on that. Now if if we knew that there was a variety of broccoli that was producing super extremely high glucose or a fan and Sprouts, you know, maybe we would want to talk about okay two ounces is plenty for a serving or in a day, but we're not all there. So in terms of eating I think I think your body and your taste buds and your food
Says are going to are going to regulate that. I wish we could say the same thing about you know about sugar and but unfortunately the control mechanism seems to be a little bit bypassed their by pure, you know, crystallized cane sugar but beet sugar. Anyway, does that answer the question? I think
yeah enjoyed. This is I'm going to go ahead and we're going to wrap it up so we can have a little bit of an outro here and I just thank you so much for taking time to answer the
Ian's relating to broccoli sprouts and cruciferous vegetables isothiocyanate sulfur Fame really beneficial to me and to the community in general for people for members for the audience now here if you like this QA, I actually do want every month for found my fitness premium members. You can find out more about that at found my fitness.com for slash premium also want to remind you guys jet had mentioned the 15-page sprouting.
Died that. He helped put together this guide covers how to safely Sprouts broccoli at home the history of chemo protection and practical tips to perfect your sprouting at home. You can find that at found my fitness.com for his last sprouting. It's fully Illustrated. It's a great resource Jed for those that want to continue following your work. Where can they find you today as in on the website and perhaps on social
media?
So today I might you have the the the handles. I'm on Twitter and not very regularly and I don't answer questions very well, but I'll get better now that I'm retired and theoretically have more time to do it. So that's at at jettison. And yeah, can you spell that? Yeah, so at je D. Oh
S like Sam a and like Nancy that's your Twitter and drink. Yeah, I think so. So I have not posted much but I will try to be more responsive to questions and I'm you know, I'm sorry. We have a website that chemo protection Center which is www.ceoproductions.com tour.com all one word.com or.org. Sorry dot or gets dot-org. Yeah, and I have a personal website that I have not attended to and
a long time because I've been working and it just hasn't been the highest priority but that's jedf a he.com. I think um, and yeah and if you contact Rhonda and say, you know Jetta hasn't been responsive than she can email me I suppose but my intent is to be much more responsive and to keep these websites to get these websites a bit more updated and user-friendly. I don't use Facebook and I
I really don't use LinkedIn very much either although on
there.
All right folks. So there you have it. You can find jet on Twitter at at Jetta Saint and you can find them on his website at chemo protection center.org or possibly alternatively judge Fahey.com. Thanks so much Jed and everyone else and we'll talk to you next month. So, thank you. Bye.
Thank you. It's great being here.
