don's report archive

by Donald B. Ardell, Ph. D.

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Although some celebrities are famous for disliking broccoli (the father of our president, for example), you ought to try to develop a taste for it and, if you can't, eat it anyway. I think broccoli is delicious but on matters of taste, there can be no dispute ("de gustibus non disputem est"), as the saying goes. Why broccoli? Well, no one food is key to your well-being but this one surely can make a contribution. Among other attractive properties, broccoli helps ward off prostate cancer, the number two form of cancer that kills American males. Recently, a Stanford study led by urologist James D. Brooks focused on one of broccoli's special ingredients, a compound called "sulforaphane." Suforaphane, it seems, increases enzymes that strengthen cellular defenses. These enzymes help deactivate cancer-causing chemicals that infiltrate the body, such as DDT. Sulforophane is one of several active substance in plants known as phytochemicals.

Dr. Brooks noted that we couldn't automatically assume that this ingredient will work in isolation, meaning in pill form, so don't buy broccoli supplements! Brooks and other researchers believe that sulforaphane must be consumed in conjunction with other ingredients in broccoli to be effective or even safe. Thus, taking dietary supplement pills of ground broccoli would not be recommended. You have to eat the plant to get the full effect!

As a child, I don't recall hearing much about broccoli, let alone sulforophane or phytochemicals. If I tried to use big words like that, my playmates would have trashed me. It was not an intellectual environment. Furthermore, the school dining menu was built around the four food groups. Why? Because in those days, that's what the visiting experts promoted. Guess where these experts usually came from? The dairy industry!

Therefore, like other kids, I ate lots of cheeses, drank milk and enjoyed all kinds of dairy products. Today, thinking along the lines of the old "Four Food Groups" is about as popular as the Taliban. Where were professional nutrition societies back in the fifties when the dairy industry supplied dairy promoters for schools nation-wide? Why did it take so long for nutritional professionals to challenge the idea of one industry's reps setting the menus for school children?

At present, broccoli and other vegetables are in favor, at least by government nutrition officials. The Food Guide Pyramid, with its low-fat, high complex carbohydrate "dine-for-performance" orientation that was once seen as the "Devil's Diet" by the dairy and meat industries, is now the standard.

Most investigators believe that fruits and vegetables, consumed daily at generous levels, will protect against heart disease, cancer and other maladies. Besides sulforaphane, broccoli and other veggies (and fruits) provide nutrients like silenium, vitamins C and E and betacarotene (which converts to vitamin A). These "antioxidants" combat the marauding molecules known as "free radicals" (oxygen compounds) that are produced during normal metabolism. Put somewhat less professionally, you skip your broccoli day after day and these suckers are gonna get you!

Meat and dairy interests might not be happy about it but the wellness movement should embrace what politicians dependent on PAC's can't, namely, a call for moderation in the consumption of meat and dairy products.

Once that's done, we can think of new ways to tweak the influence of the tobacco and gun industries that, fortunately, are not permitted to distribute samples to schoolchildren.

As I always say, look on the bright side of life. Cheers.

(Note: This essay will be filed in the archives in the PHYSICAL DOMAIN under the skill area of nutrition. Additional articles related to this theme may be found there.)

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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