Healthy by Nature radio show this week: We have a double-header. I ask Dr. Lorraine Hache about looking younger from treatments with EzziLift, a new device that gives a gentle but effective lift to the face. Then Jeffrey Anshel, OD, author of Smart Medicine for Your Eyes: A Guide to Natural, Effective and Safe Relief of Common Eye Disorders will answer listener questions about eye problems. Call in during the show on 1-800-281-8255. Click here to find podcasts, show archives and ways to listen nationwide.
 
 The “Dirty Dozen” and the “Clean 15”
Produce buying guide. It would be great for our collective health and for the environment if everyone bought only organic food. Unfortunately, that isn’t always possible due to availability of organic foods in some locations and for some to budget concerns. The Environmental Working Group, a non-profit watchdog organization, periodically updates its list of the fruits and vegetables that are safest to eat as commercially grown as well as those that should be avoided because they are the most chemically contaminated. For example, they said that commercial celery tested positive for 57 different pesticides and some strawberries had as many as 13. Download their newly updated shopping guide.

My 2 Cents: Pesticides are, by definition, poisons that can cause a myriad of health problems from nerve damage to cancer. Many are known as “endocrine disrupters” because they play havoc with our hormones. For example, some act as fake estrogens increasing our risks for prostate and breast cancer. They also clog up our detox pathways. That makes us more vulnerable to the side effects of medications and even to the toxins we routinely develop in our intestinal tracts. Our grandparents didn’t have to contend with this problem because the usage of agricultural chemicals didn’t start getting out of hand until the 1940’s and 50’s. There are 10’s of thousands of chemicals being released into the environment and only a tiny handful are tested and regulated. The air is what it is. But we can at least avoid putting toxins in our mouths. As I mentioned in a section of an earlier newsletter about the Excel spreadsheet I used to make a grocery checklist, I list the dirty dozen in bold so I can remember.

Magical Vegetable

Broccoli. Don’t you think it would be on the front page of every newspaper in the country if a pharmaceutical company discovered a drug that safely inhibited the spread of melanoma (an aggressive and often deadly skin cancer) and encouraged cancer cells to kill themselves off? Amazingly, sulforaphane (pronounced sul·fo·raph·ane), a constituent of broccoli, does just that.1 Search for “broccoli” in the PubMed database and it returns almost 9,000 references! Eighty three of those studies were summarized in a monograph in The Alternative Medicine Review.²
 

Broccoli is anti-inflammatory, an antioxidant and assists detoxification. Those functions and more bring benefit to problems as diverse as rheumatoid arthritis, macular degeneration, airway inflammation, blood pressure, cholesterol, low HDL, bone thinning and of course, cancer.  Sulforaphane also seems to prevent the inflammation and death of kidney cells that often results from chemotherapy.³ In my heartburn book I wrote that broccoli can help control the bacteria H. pylori, a cause of gastritis and ulcers. But, as you can see, that may be the least of its amazing effects. Sulforaphane is also present in other cruciferous vegetables like cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and cabbage. Broccoli sprouts and seeds are an especially concentrated source. These are foods and so it is no surprise that they are extremely safe.

 My 2 Cents: Doesn’t it seem as though nature intended us to eat these cruciferous veggies? However, the elder President Bush isn’t the only person who doesn’t like broccoli. Even our Wascally Wabbit prefers his carrot to the broccoli I substituted when he wasn’t looking. While there is nothing quite as good as eating the actual vegetables with all their fiber and enzymes intact, we can at least be assured of getting a health-supporting supply of sulforaphane by supplementing. There are many good products available made from broccoli seeds. Here is an example from our sponsor Jarrow Formulas.

My first book : Natural Alternatives to Nexium, Maalox, Tagamet, Prilosec & Other Acid Blockers. Subtitle: What to Use to Relieve Acid Reflux, Heartburn, and Gastric Ailments.

My latest book : Aloe Vera-Modern Science Sheds Light on an Ancient Herbal Remedy

Copyright 2011 Martie Whittekin, CCN

¹ Hamsa, TP. Induction of apoptosis by sulforaphane in highly metastatic B16F-10 melanoma cells. Drug Chem Toxicol. 2011 Jul;34(3):332-40.

² http://www.altmedrev.com/publications/15/4/352.pdf

³ Guerrero-Beltrán, CE. Sulforaphane, a natural constituent of broccoli, prevents cell death and inflammation in nephropathy. J Nutr Biochem. 2011 Jun 16. [Epub ahead of print]