How Much Broccoli Is Too Much?
Four cups of broccoli sprouts a day may exceed the safe dose of the cruciferous phytonutrient sulforaphane.
Topics
Supplementary Info
How Much Broccoli Is Too Much?,
Sources Cited
Sestili P, Paolillo M, Lenzi M, Colombo E, Vallorani L, Casadei L, Martinelli C, Fimognari C. Sulforaphane induces DNA single strand breaks in cultured human cells. Mutat Res. 2010 Jul 7;689(1-2):65-73.
Acknowledgements
Image thanks to adactio.
Transcript
It’s nice to know there were no apparent adverse effects even at 27 cups of broccoli a day’s worth of these cruciferous phytonutrients, but has to be some point at which it becomes toxic, and indeed there is. Some researchers in Italy tried to push the envelope,. They’re trying to come up with an infusion dose to use as actual chemotherapy and so wanted to know how high they could go. And yes, there is a level at which you can cause DNA damage at the equivalent of about 100 cups of broccoli a day or actually just 4 cups of broccoli sprouts. They conclude no sign of DNA lesions could be observed at nutritionally attainable concentrations. But that’s not really true. I mean you could eat four cups of sprouts a day. See they don’t know health nuts like I know some health nuts.
Someone came up to me after a lecture a few years ago and said how he heard that wheatgrass juice was good for you, cleans you out, and so he wanted to try stuffing himself with it. So he told me he calculated the volume of the human digestive tract—all ten yards or so—and proceeded to drink that amount continuousy—quart after quart—until, it started coming out the other end. So I asked him, well, what happened ? And he looked up at me, with an expression that I can only describe as rapture, and said—no joke, It was volcanic.
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
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Doctor's Note
This video is a follow-up on yesterday’s video Liver Toxicity Due to Broccoli Juice? and is video #7 of my 13-part series on the latest science on cruciferous vegetables. See Kale & Immune System, Smoking vs. Kale, DNA & Broccoli, Broccoli vs. Breast Cancer, Sulforaphane and hundreds of my other videos on more than a thousand subjects.
For some context, please check out my associated blog post, The Best Detox.
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The most powerful natural inducer of our liver's detoxifying enzyme system is sulforaphane, a phytonutrient produced by broccoli.
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