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29.06.2024

More broccoli, less cancer

A high intake of broccoli reduces the risk of cancer by 11-36 percent. At least, if you believe the meta-analysis that epidemiologists from the Spanish Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recently published in Nutrients.

Study
Eduard Baladia and his colleagues traced 35 epidemiological studies in the scientific literature in which researchers had looked at the link between the risk of cancer on the one hand and broccoli intake on the other. They combined the results of the studies and reanalyzed them.

23 studies were case-control studies. In this case, the study compares two groups - a group diagnosed with cancer and a comparable control group that resembles the cancer group in all aspects except the diagnosis. This type of research is suitable for finding connections, but many of those connections later turn out not to exist in more thorough research.

12 studies were cohort studies. In this case, these are studies in which researchers follow large groups of people whose lifestyles they have learned over time and then record which of them develop cancer. Cohort studies have a reputation for being more conservative but sometimes more reliable than case-control studies.

Results
According to the case-control studies, study participants who ate broccoli relatively often - which ranges from 1-7 times a week - had a 36 percent lower risk of cancer than study participants who never ate broccoli or less than once a week.

According to the case-control studies Baladia analyzed, broccoli reduced the risk of all types of cancer, except for prostate cancer.

Click on the figures below for a larger version.

According to the cohort studies, broccoli reduced the risk of cancer by 11 percent. According to these studies, broccoli mainly protected against bladder cancer.

Mechanism
"The possible protective effect of broccoli could be explained, at least in part, by the chemopreventive and anticancer properties of the metabolites present in this cruciferous plant", write the Italians.

"Broccoli serves as a significant source of isothiocyanates, small biologically active molecules derived from glucosinolates."

"Sulforaphane, as an essential compound in broccoli, is an isothiocyanate with notable anticancer and chemopreventive properties. Sulforaphane plays a crucial role in diverse biological processes associated with cancer, including enzymatic detoxification of carcinogens, attenuation of oxidative stress, initiation of cell cycle arrest [and] promotion of apoptosis."

Source:
Nutrients. 2024 May 23;16(11):1583.

More:
Carrots, lettuce & cabbage | These vegetables protect against liver cancer 02.09.2023
Leafy vegetables, broccoli and blueberries, no juices | 4 nutrition tips to survive breast cancer 30.03.2021
Cabbage halves prostate cancer risk 10.02.2013

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