As
children we were always told to “eat every carrot and pea on your plate”
because vegetables are good for us, and usually we were not allowed to leave
the table until the task was complete.
However, what if all along we really should be eating broccoli, cabbage,
Brussels sprouts, and other cruciferous vegetables not just peas and carrots?
Cruciferous
vegetables are from the family of Brassicaceae, flowering plants that are similar
in nature to the cabbage family.
As mentioned above this vegetable family includes broccoli, cauliflower,
cabbage, bok choy, kale, Brussels sprouts and other leafy greens. Research that is taking place in the UK
is suggesting that sulforaphane could help fight OA. (Sulforaphane is a compound found in
cruciferous vegetables. It is
currently known that these compounds posses anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory
properties.) This study was done
to show how this compound could influence overall joint health, and
furthermore, if sulforaphane was able to make its way into joints in adequate
quantities in order to produce effects.
The
leading professor on the study says that this study is promising because it has
already been shown to work in the other three models they have tried (cartilage
cells, tissue, and mice).
However, now the study is trying to prove that it can work in
humans. This is a major hurtle
though, like we have discussed in numerous class sessions that sometimes it is
very difficult to convert data yielded from mouse models to that for humans. In addition, it further states that
this is only going to be “a small trial in 40 osteoarthritis patients who are
due to have joint replacement surgery” (Paddock 2013). The study will be set up so that two
weeks before the surgery, half of the patients will eat “super broccoli” that
was specially made to contain high amounts of sulforaphane, while the other half received none. Then after the procedure, the team will
compare the two sets of patients and see whether the compound is detectable in
the replaced joints or if it altered the joint metabolism.
This is a really great idea and direction that this experiment has,
however, there are some issues.
The major issue being that the broccoli had to be specifically made to
contain higher than normal levels of sulforaphane. Therefore, if this experiment did work as planned and the
sulforaphane did have its intended effect(s), then it would not be able to cross
over from the experimental world to the practical world where people do not eat
those doses of compound. Also, it
is said that the safety for taking sulforaphane orally is unknown, proving that
there would be no way to continuously give the doses of sulforaphane to the
public in needed amounts. The
second major issue is the time period that the sulforaphane is given to the patients. They are only giving the patients two
weeks to take this compound. Why
would they not give the patients longer periods of time to take this
compound? Longer periods of time
would probably prove to give better results due to more sufficient data.
Another
experiment that is being done involves the use of milk. In addition to being told to eat all of
our vegetables, we were also told as kids to drink milk because it keeps our
bones strong. This experiment
wants to find if there was an association with milk consumption and progression
of knee OA. This study is much
larger than the first containing almost 3,100 participants that were followed
for 12, 24, 36, and 48 months. They were able to determined the progression of OA by joint
space width between the medial femur and tibia of the knee by radiographs. This experiment was able to conclude
that frequent milk consumption may be associated with reduced OA progression in
women. However, stated in this
experiment, other replications of this study are needed to determine that these
findings are solid, however I think that this study is on the right track.
With
all of that being said, I think that these are two new paths for furthering progression of OA, however, more experiments need to be done. In the meantime, everyone should
continue to eat their broccoli and intake calcium!
Sources:
"Sulforaphane:
Uses, Side Effects, Interactions and Warnings - WebMD." WebMD.
WebMD, 1 Jan.
2009. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.webmd.com/vitamins-supplements/ingredientmono-1070-sulforaphane.aspx?activeingredientid=1070&activeingredientname=sulforaphane>.
"Cruciferous Vegetables." Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, 29 Oct. 2014. Web. 9 Nov. 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruciferous_vegetables>.
Lu, Bing, Jeffery B. Driban, Jeffery Duryea, Timothy McAlidon, Kate
L. Lapane, and Charles B. Eaton. "Milk Consumption and Progression of
Medial Tibiofemoral Knee Osteoarthritis: Data From the Osteoarthritis
Initiative." Arthritis Care & Research 66.6 (2014): 802-09.
Osteoarthritis. American College of Rheumatology. Web. 9 Nov. 2014. <http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/acr.22297/abstract>.
Paddock, Catherine. "Eating Broccoli May Help Prevent
Osteoarthritis." Medical News Today. Medical News Today, 28 Aug.
2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.
<http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265310.php>.
Hello Bonnie. I am interested in diet as a means to improve our overall health and prevent diseases such as OA, because “you are what you eat”. My mom and sisters are really into smoothies, and they like adding things such as kale. I have wondered though if that little bit of kale really does anything. They eat a smoothie pretty much every day for breakfast, so I would think the daily intake over time might take an effect. I really do think time is an important factor, as you had mentioned. Could there be an industry for “super smoothies” for bone health made with milk, kale, and boosts of sulforaphane?
ReplyDeleteI think that there could be an industry for these "super smoothies", but the only thing that concerns me is the sulforaphane. The safety surrounding just taking the sulforaphane compound alone is know so I think more research would need to go into that. However, if they did just boost the kale to be "super kale" like in the experiment with the broccoli it would be doing the same thing! Great idea though and I think that it would catch on not only for OA patients because it is a healthy option which is prevalent in our society today.
DeleteI really enjoyed this post, Bonnie. You took a different approach to help with OA that differed from home remedies and medicine. I am glad that you addressed the different problems associated as well. We have discussed before how eating "naturals" that are already in food is difficult because of the dose that you would actually have to intake in order to see results. With the broccoli, like you said, it would be hard to convert everyone to eat this super broccoli. I think overall this goes with a healthy lifestyle. If you incorporate these foods into your diet on a regular basis, and exercise your risks of OA are reduced substantially.
ReplyDeleteThis article post was quite interesting. Since it's already common sense knowledge that broccoli and other types of vegetables are good for your body and overall health, I never really questioned why and how this is the way things are. But after reading your article, I'm pretty glad that I bought broccoli over the weekend when I went grocery shopping.
ReplyDeleteHey Bonnie! Thank you for this post, it was interesting to see the findings of these studies. Going off of what Marissa touched on, Kale has become popular amongst health conscious consumers in the past couple of years due to its "health benefits", one of which is probably the presence of sulforaphane in Kale. If further studies show that this treatment is promising in humans at higher doses, genetically modified Cruciferous vegetables with higher doses of sulforaphane may be produced for OA patients to help alleviate their symptoms. As you said, more studies need to be done on this treatment but targeting nutrition could lead to a market for these vegetables and the next "health craze" amongst OA patients.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this post Bonnie. What I thought to be particularly interesting is that milk was considered beneficial for OA. I have read in the past that despite popular belief, milk has been shown to be detrimental to bone health and can actually be a cause for osteoporosis. The mechanism behind this is that milk will acidify blood, leading to the body leaching calcium out of the bones to neutralize the change in pH. I wonder if there may be a different mechanism behind milk's protective effects in OA. Either way drinking milk seems to be a tradeoff, something we have seen many times throughout the semester for different treatments.
ReplyDeleteHey Bonnie. Speaking about common knowledge in nutrition, I remembered hearing once about diary being removed from the nutritional pyramid we were all introduced to as children. I researched it and there are many publications saying diary is not necessary or as beneficial as it was originally thought, and the rest say diary consumption should be limited. It baffles me when something that was considered such a cornerstone for modern day nutrition suddenly becomes the opposite, but data shows for example, that regions of the world with lower milk consumption exhibit lower rates of OA. It makes me wonder what else we've been doing wrong all along.
ReplyDelete