Eat your broccoli-because you cant get the same health benefits from pills. Oregon State University researchers report that key phytonutrients found in broccoli and other, similar vegetables, which are being studied as possible anti-cancer agents, are best obtained from the actual vegetables, preferably raw or only lightly cooked.
The actual health value of nutrients is dependent upon the degree of their absorption, metabolism, disposition and excretion after consumption, explains C-Y. Oliver Chen, PhD, a scientist at Tufts HNRCA Antioxidants Research Laboratory. The bioactive form of nutrients that exert health functions sometimes is not the one present in foods but the transformed one produced via different mechanisms, such as enzymatic reactions. Thus, to acquire the best health value, some nutrients are best consumed in natural, raw form, such as broccoli.
In the new study, Emily Ho, PhD, of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, and colleagues compared consumption of broccoli in sprout form to broccoli supplements. Such supplements have grown increasingly popular with rising interest in the vegetables health-boosting properties. The researchers looked particularly at the availability of two types of isothiocyanate compounds, sulforaphane and erucin, that have been studied for health benefits.
Ho and colleagues found that the body absorbs five times as much sulforaphane compounds and eight times as much erucin compounds from vegetables as from pills. The key difference between veggies and these particular pills may be an enzyme-often missing from many broccoli extracts-that helps the body break down plant chemicals called glucosinolates into those nutrients.
This finding has significant implications for people who consume broccoli supplements for the chemopreventive benefits and believe they are getting equivalent amounts of the bioactive isothiocyanates as if they were consuming fresh broccoli sprouts, Ho and colleagues concluded.
They noted that some vitamins, such as the form of vitamin B12 found in fortified cereals, are actually better absorbed in their synthesized forms. But the particular compounds that we believe give broccoli and related vegetables their health value need to come from the complete food.
TO LEARN MORE: Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, online first; abstract at pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf202887c.