Type 2 diabetes , the typical one in adults, is increasingly widespread (it already affects more than 300 million individuals worldwide), and, although changes in the affected person’s lifestyle – diet and physical activity – are essential to treat it, the use of medications to control blood glucose levels is also frequent. However, these antidiabetic drugs do not always work equally well in all patients, since in some cases they have unwanted side effects, so studies are necessary to open alternative treatment possibilities to combat the disease.
One of them could be found in the traditional garden, since, according to new research, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine , broccoli could help us to stop this disease . The key would be in sulforaphane , a natural compound found in the sprouts of this plant and other vegetables such as Brussels sprouts , which would inhibit glucose production in cultured cells and improve glucose tolerance in rodents with high diets in fat or high fructose .
The study, carried out by a team led by Annika Axelsson of the Lund University Diabetes Center in Malmö, Sweden, analyzed the gene expression pattern associated with type 2 diabetes and studied thousands of compounds for drugs that they could potentially help fight the disease. Of all of them, according to their findings, the most promising and leading candidate would be sulforaphane.
In the last step of their study, the researchers gave this compound – in the form of a concentrated extract of broccoli sprouts ; the dose was approximately one hundred times the amount found naturally in this plant – or a placebo to a total of 97 patients with type 2 diabetes , over the course of three months.
The result was encouraging, since, in obese patients, it reduced fasting blood glucose by 10% compared to those who had taken a placebo, and this significant reduction is enough to reduce a diabetic’s risk of developing other health problems. Also, the compound did not cause any side effects. The researchers plan to study the benefits of this concentrated extract in prediabetics as well.
