Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Muy Scientific

Andrew found research on the healthy consumption of a semi-toxic green substance, different from the supply @ OBX. CHILL scientifically is NOT broccoli.

One immediate confusion:
  • CHILL = 1 C, 2 L's;
  • BROCCOLI = 2 C's, 1 L.

Broccoli Extract Could Help Head Off Skin Cancer
(Washington Post 10/23/2007; Page A03 ) By Rick Weiss

George H.W. Bush: Call your dermatologist.

New research suggests that broccoli, the vegetable that the former president famously demonized as inedible, can prevent the damage from ultraviolet light that often leads to skin cancer. And as Bush would surely appreciate, he would not even have to eat it.

In tests on people and hairless mice, a green smear of broccoli-sprout extract blocked the potentially cancer-causing damage usually inflicted by sunlight and showed potential advantages over sunscreens.

The product is still in the early stages of development. Among other issues to be worked out is how best to remove the extract's green pigments, which do not contribute to its protective effects and would give users a temporary Martian complexion.
...

"The use of dietary substances, like the antioxidant vitamins C and E, has been pretty much a colossal failure for protection against almost any kind of human disease," Sporn said, "because when you eat them they don't go where you want them to . . . and as soon as your body uses them up, they're gone."

By contrast, he said, boosting production of the body's own cancer-fighting mechanisms "is a new and promising approach."

...


Then there is the extract's green tint, which would be absent if the team were to synthesize the sulforaphane instead of getting it from sprouts. But that would raise safety and regulatory concerns.

"The advantage of starting with sprouts is that we all eat broccoli so we're not concerned with toxicity issues," Dinkova-Kostova said, adding that she anticipated no problems getting the green out.
##

No comments: