Broccoli Sprouts for Brain Health
I grow my own and I feel invincible!
Neuro Athletes,
Have you been watching the World Cup? It’s one of my most favourite times of sport. The TV is always set to the current game playing and when it’s not, I have the highlights playing and the commentary on in the background.
Moving on to todays email. I am going to touch on something that I think you will find highly insightful when it comes to brain health and preventing cognitive impairment.
If you want to slow the ageing process, lower your risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia, and feel and look more youthful and energetic, it’s time to start thinking about glutathione.
Glutathione—aka “the mother of all antioxidants”—is a key player in our internal defense system, where it’s constantly being used to quench free radicals and combat inflammation.
Before we move into it, here’s a little something from my instagram.
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Primer
Glutathione is an antioxidant used by every cell and tissue in the body. Although critical for a number of processes, it has limited use as dietary supplement due to rapid breakdown during oral ingestion. Its metabolite, L-cysteine, can increase glutathione in the body but consuming L-cysteine via glutathione is inefficient and costly.
Antioxidants
Antioxidants are molecules that protect our cells from the damage caused by unstable molecules called free radicals. In short, these unstable molecules contain oxygen and have an uneven number of electrons. Electrons come in pairs and free radicals have an unpaired electron. Antioxidants can donate an electron to the molecule which prevents them from taking the electron from our cells and tissues in an attempt to bring stability
Sulforaphane
We can get sulforaphane from broccoli sprouts, well actually, we can get it from all cruciferous vegetables contain the precursor to sulforaphane called glucoraphanin. Broccoli sprouts just so happen to have the most, followed by regular broccoli.
Sulforaphane (SFN) is a phytocompound belonging to the isothiocyanate family. Although it was also found in seeds and mature plants, SFN is mainly present in sprouts of many cruciferous vegetables, including cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.
SFN is produced by the conversion of glucoraphanin through the enzyme myrosinase, which leads to the formation of this isothiocyanate. SFN is especially characterized by antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic properties, and for this reason, it aroused the interest of researchers.
But what is it that makes sulforaphane such a highly sought-after phytochemical we want in our diet? Sulforaphane has the power to upregulate our antioxidant genes, lower inflammation, and fight cancer as well as other chronic diseases. It has a long list of medicinal benefits, but boosting glutathione (the mother of all antioxidants) definitely tops the list.
You can boost the sulforaphane (and glutathione) in cooked broccoli by eating it with mustard seed extract (or just regular mustard if that’s easier). Glucoraphanin can only be converted to sulforaphane with help from an enzyme called myrosinase.
Myrosinase is activated when we chew, chop, or crush broccoli. However, myrosinase is deactivated when we cook broccoli, which washes out any potential for sulforaphane to do its thing.
Sulforaphane and Alzheimer’s Disease
AD is a chronic neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive cognitive deficits. The disease shows extracellular aggregates of beta-amyloid (Aβ) peptides leading to the formation of plaques and intracellular accumulation of hyperphosphorylated tau protein, which in turn leads to the formation of neurofibrillary tangles.
A growing body of evidence suggests that sulforaphane's protective effects extend to the brain, where it appears to enhance brain-derived neurotrophic factor (a protein that controls and promotes the growth of new neurons) and inhibits histone deacetylation (an epigenetic modification that influences gene expression). Other evidence demonstrates that sulforaphane provides protection from methylglyoxal, a critical player in the pathogenesis of advanced glycation end products, prominent features of diabetes and major contributors to amyloid-beta aggregation in the brain.
But how?
SFN, through its molecular target Nrf2 can exert a beneficial role by activating genes and molecules with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic properties. Therefore, based on its effects, as well as a low neurotoxicity, SFN could be useful as a support to current therapies for the management of neurodegenerative diseases. Moreover, although some mechanisms are still not fully known, Nrf2 can be considered a useful therapeutic target for developing new strategies capable of counteracting the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as AD, PD, and MS.
However, further studies are needed to elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying the properties of SFN and also to identify new molecular therapeutic targets.
I make my own broccoli sprouts and you can too!
If you enjoyed this newsletter I am sure you will enjoy my episode with Doug Evans I did back in January!
Until next time,
Louisa xx