Broccoli the 'miracle vegetable' prevents stomach cancer

Broccoli the 'miracle vegetable' prevents stomach cancer
08 April 2009

It’s already known as the miracle vegetable, and now researchers have discovered that broccoli can also prevent stomach cancer.

Eating just two and a half ounces of broccoli sprouts for two months can help prevent you getting the stomach bug Helicobactor pylori, responsible for gastritis, ulcers and stomach cancer.

Scientists reckon the vegetable, eaten in these proportions, can reduce the level of HpSA, a measure of H pylori presence, by 40 per cent. By comparison, HpSA levels didn’t go down in people who ate alfalfa sprouts.

Broccoli’s magic ingredient is sulforaphane, and it’s found more in the sprouts than the vegetable’s heads.

Sulforaphane was first recognised as a potent antibiotic against the H pylori bug in 2002.

(Source: Cancer Prevention Research, 2009; 2: 353).