The Effect of Broccoli Sprouts as a Nutritional Supplement in the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease.

Inflammation plays an important role in the development of atherosclerosis. The initial site of damage is the endothelium and secondarily the rest of the vascular wall is involved. Hypotheses concerning the development of these lesions have introduced the concept of oxidative stress, ("an imbalance between oxidants and antioxidants in favor of the oxidants, potentially leading to damage") as having a key role in the development of atherosclerosis. Consequently, much interest has been focused on attenuating oxidative stress in order to minimize this damage.

Clinical trials for the study of the effect of antioxidants on the atherosclerotic process, using micronutrients with a reductive potential, have failed to demonstrate a benefit for the patients and some have even shown an increased mortality.

An alternative is to induce the endogenous antioxidative defense of the cell. One possibility is to increase the expression of enzymes responsible for neutralizing oxidative substances, a group of enzymes relevant for this path are the phase 2 enzymes, for instance gluthation-s-transferase(GsT).

Broccoli sprouts have a very high content of Glucoraphanin(GP) a substance which has the ability to increase the expression of GsT.

Experiments involving stroke prone hypertensive rats and humans have indicated that GP in broccoli sprouts have a beneficial effect against oxidative stress. In the experiment with the rats a consequence of the protection against oxidative stress was an increase in endothelial dependant vasodilation(EDV). This finding is important because low EDV predicts development of atherosclerosis.