If you are holding out for another reason to eat your broccoli, a team of Johns Hopkins scientists found a compound in the green sprouts better than sunblock that can protect you from skin cancer-causing ultraviolet radiation.
A chemical called sulfurophane ? already found to protect against a rare brittle-skin disorder ? can disrupt the cancer-causing effects of ultraviolet light without having any sun-blocking ability, according to a report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A broccoli extract containing sulfurophane does not absorb UV light to prevent its entry into the skin, said investigator Paul Talalay, M.D., professor of pharmacology at Johns Hopkins. The extract works inside cells by boosting production of a network of protective enzymes that defend cells against many aspects of UV damage. In addition, the protection lasts for several days, even after the extract is no longer present on or in the skin.
“We applied broccoli sprout extracts to human skin and found that these protective enzymes in the skin went up two- to fourfold,” Talalay said.
At the highest doses, UV-induced redness and inflammation were reduced by an average of 37 percent, according to the article. The extractswere protective even when applied three days before UV exposure.
Disclosure note: Paul Talalay and co-author Jed Fahey are unpaid consultants to Brassica Protection Products LLC (BPP), which licenses the technology to produce broccoli sprouts. Talalay, Fahey and The Johns Hopkins University are equity owners in BPP (whose chief executive officer is Antony Talalay, son of Paul).
