Broccoli Boosts Liver Detox Enzymes | Care2 Healthy Living

Researchers just found out that the boost in detoxifying enzymes triggered by cruciferous vegetable consumption may last for weeks!

Last spring in my Care2 post The Best Detox I described this amazing phenomenon in which a phytonutrient produced by broccoli can enhance the function of our so-called phase II enzyme system that aids in the excretion of foreign molecules. For example if you feed people broccoli and Brussels sprouts, they clear caffeine quicker as you can see if you click on the above video. This means that if you eat a lot of these healthy vegetables you?d actually have to drink more coffee to get the same buzz because your liver is so revved up.

15 Ways to Use Broccoli

What about the carcinogens that I wrote about in my last three posts, Estrogens in Cooked Meat, Avoiding Cooked Meat Carcinogens, and Cancer Growth Blockers: Green Tea & Garlic? In the studies on Long Island, women that established increased breast cancer risk in those eating grilled meats found that the risk appeared greatest in women with the low fruit and vegetable consumption. Maybe having a side of broccoli can help your body deal with the carcinogen load? Researchers decided to put it to the test.

In the above video I detail a study in which subjects were fed cooked meat meals with and without broccoli and Brussels sprouts. You can see how dramatically the levels of these carcinogenic compounds circulating in their bodies drops. Now this wasn?t a surprise; that?s what cruciferous vegetables do?boost our liver?s ability to clear chemicals from our body. What blew the researchers away was the fact that when the veggies were taken away liver function remained enhanced?even two weeks later.

So there appears to be a prolonged beneficial effect of cruciferous vegetable consumption. You can eat broccoli days or even weeks before the big barbeque and still retain some protection. Of course if you grill veggie burgers instead it would be a non-issue. Since heterocyclic amines are byproducts of muscle tissue reacting to high heat, you can even deep-fry plant foods and still none of these carcinogens are formed.

For more on broccoli?s superpowers see my video Sometimes the Enzyme Myth Is True. You can overdo it, but apparently only at extremely high doses (see?Liver Toxicity Due to Broccoli Juice, Overdosing on Greens, and?How Much Broccoli Is Too Much?).

In health,
Michael Greger, M.D.

PS: If you haven?t yet, you can subscribe to my videos for free by clicking here and watch my full 2012 year-in-review presentation?Uprooting the Leading Causes of Death.

Image credit: [puamelia] via Flickr, and Dhaluza and David.Monniaux via Wikimedia Commons.

Related:
Eating Green to Prevent Cancer
How Do Plant-Based Diets Fight Cancer?
Breast Cancer Stem Cells vs. Broccoli

Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/broccoli-boosts-liver-detox-enzymes.html

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