Better Eat Your Broccoli Sprouts

Date: September 24, 2009

If eaten regularly, broccoli sprouts—or baby broccoli—may help protect against stomach bugs that cause gastritis, ulcers and stomach cancer.

That comes from a recent study led by Johns Hopkins nutritional biochemist Jed W. Fahey, M.S., Sc.D. “We know that a dose of a couple ounces a day of broccoli sprouts is enough to elevate the body’s protective enzymes,” he explains. “That’s the mechanism that we think is causing what we call chemoprotective effects.”

Fahey says they don’t know whether it’s going to prevent people from getting stomach cancer. But the fact that the levels of infection and inflammation were reduced in the study suggests a reduced likelihood of gastritis, ulcers and cancer, he notes.

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