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Pedram: Hi, everybody. Dr. Pedram back with Dr. Sara. Hello.
Sara: Hi, there. Pedram: Nice to see you. Today is broccoli
day. We have some interesting data thatís come through from a study that I know youíre
excited to pick a part and get in to. Weíve been talking about broccoli on and off for
a long time here, so we figured weíll roll up our sleeves, and really get in to the science
behind it. How that sound? Sara: Sounds good to me. I love that this
is going to take us to Johns Hopkins. Itís one of the schools that I think has mythical
qualities. Itís considered so rigorous. I love that weíve got broccoli and Johns Hopkins
in the same sentence. Pedram: Ten years ago, I donít know if that
wouldíve been the case. Twenty years ago, for sure not, but now itís whatís being
studied. Let thy food be thy medicine. Thereís all kinds of stuff happening in very reputable
institutions right now talking about what these foods are potentially doing, and where
their health benefits are. The part that always gets me is theyíll go and theyíll do these
studies, and then all of a sudden, scratch their head and say, ìWow. Iím really amazed
on how well that worked.î Sara: An apple, like this works better than
a pharmaceutical. Who knew? Hypocrisy is new about this. Let food be thy medicine, let
medicine thy food. Pedram: We could get in to a little bit of
that as well. At the end of the day, a lot of the education had been shifted or letís
just say influenced by pharmaceutical interests who said, ìYou know what? With all these
young smart people coming out of medical school, if we could just tell them about our drugs,
and have them recommend them, it might be good for business.î That model we can see
collapsing in front of us in a lot of ways. A lot of very serious good doctors are going
back to say, ìWell, letís start with the basics. Whatís are you eating, and what could
do that for you?î Sara: Good riddance to that whole idea that
youíve got to find the answer to health in the bottom of a prescription pill bottle.
On the one hand, I think it can be lifesaving. We all want antibiotics for the life threating
infection. We all want certain pharmaceuticals when necessary. Itís just that theyíre overused,
and we need to get to the basics as we are today.
Pedram: I wanted to just note something. As Iím looking at this study, it was 1992. I
said 10 years ago, we werenít talking about this. These guys were rocking this stuff in
1992. Sara: Go Hopkins.
Pedram: Hopkins got it figured out. This has been years of work that theyíve been following
up on. All of a sudden, when you hear people saying you should eat broccoli, know that
itís usually because years of research has gone in and, itís really shifted the dynamics
of how weíre talking about it now. I say we roll up our sleeves, and geek out for a
minute, and just talk about the big points on this thing, and then weíll get in to what
that means in real politic in the grocery store.
Sara: Sounds good. Yeah. Start that revolution with your grocery cart. Letís do this.
Pedram: All right. Yes. I love it. 1992, they started doing [Tilelite 03:21]. Iím not quite
sure. Do you know how to pronounce the name? Sara: Letís just call him Ö Do we know his
first name? [Tilelite 03:30]? I canít say it.
Pedram: I donít want to butcher the poor personís name.
Sara: Letís just call him T. Pedram: T, Dr. T. They started looking at
Brassica. Itís basically a plant gene. Itís commonly known as a mustard family. It includes
in addition broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage kale, cauliflower. Itís only stuff that you
love eating as a child, right? Sara: Right, not. We know that some people
have that taste for the bitter qualities of these cruciferous vegetables, these Brassica.
They just taste horrible in their mouth. I happen not to have that gene, the bitter gene.
My husband does, so he canít even stand the smell of these things getting cooked. Weíre
a little different. This is that era of personalized medicine. Some of us really love these types
of vegetables. Others are just like, ìStay away.î
Pedram: If youíre a stay-away type of person, then thereís lots of extracts. Thereís lots
of interesting stuff that is happening now where Ö Okay. Weíre finding some of the
very specific chemicals that theyíve actually dubbed as chemo protection chemicals that
are being found in these foods, and so we could take them and concentrate, make extracts,
and take those as pills which, hey, look. It works. If you canít choke down the broccoli,
take the pills for sure if you canít eat it. Iím a big fan of the whole food thing
as I know you are too because look, then youíre getting the whole fiber, youíre getting soluble
fiber, youíre getting the water, and youíre basically getting say tidy on something thatís
really low calorie, high *** for your buck. I donít think I know anyone whoís getting
fat off a broccoli. Sara: Pedram. Iím just going to throw this
in here. We got to talk about Dr. T in a moment. We had a question from one of our listeners,
a physician who is listening to us, and asking about estrogen metabolism in the context of
our conversation about Angelina Jolie. We did talk about estrogen metabolism in that
conversation. In fact, we talked about cruciferous vegetables, how they do more good than harm
when it comes to your thyroid. I think this whole idea of quite generic effects are may
be overstated. Thereís not a lot of great science behind it.
We do know that this extract in particular, diindolylmethane DIM, helps to create a more
favorable estrogen pathway in your body, so that you make more of the good protective
estrogens and fewer of the ones that are more likely to cause harm in the body that are
more tumorigenic. I just wanted to add that there is a time and a place for these extracts.
Yes, we think itís a good idea to get the fiber when you get the whole food, but you
have to eat about 25 pounds of broccoli to get the equivalent of whatís in a dose of
diindolylmethane that I happen to use. Pedram: Food-based green medicine is this
huge movement right now. People are looking at taking the good from these foods, and basically
capacitating it. Not messing with it, not tweaking it, but taking the good thing, and
giving you that in higher dose to get the benefits that we want. If you go into your
physician saying, ìHey. I want to try these things,î and theyíre shaking their head
saying, ìI donít know what youíre talking about.î Then you might want to either bring
literature to them, or say, ìLook. Thereís other docs in town,î because thereís a lot
of evidence coming out in this space and have been coming. This study is 1992.
Thereís a lot of stuff coming out thatís pointing to all these. These functional docs
that are out there basically on the racerís edge and close to, theyíre really changing
peopleís lives by using natural forms of medicine that are getting the results, and
are proven by labs day in and day out in clinics all over the country.
Sara: You got that right. If you want to read more just about diindolylmethane, I talked
about it quite a bit in my book The Hormone Cure. You can pick up a copy of that. Itís
in the chapter on excess estrogens. Pedram: Fantastic. Yes. You wouldnít be surprised,
but one would be surprised how much that is in effect in our modern world. Estrogenic
soap, estrogenic Ö compounds in all of our foods, if youíre not careful with taking
soy and things that are like estrogen modulators. Thereís estrogen everywhere. Unless we are
properly metabolizing hormones, properly moving stuff through, weíre going to have problems.
You talked about a lot of those things in your book, and I really appreciate Ö Iíve
actually recommended your book to probably 80% of the female patients coming through
our clinic just saying, ìJust read this. Someone finally put this in English for you.î
Sara: Thank you. Another important point here, the microbio. The set of genetic material
that is in the bacteria in your gut has gotten a lot of attention recently. Weíre going
to do a future session on this, but I think itís important to also mention that with
the rise of the Paleo movement back to protein and vegetables as a basic food plan, people
are eating more red meat. We know that red meat actually changes the microbio, and it
also raises your estrogen level. I think that this baseline issue that we have with the
high level of estrogen dominance for women who are 35 and older may be getting the little
worst with Paleo. Itís just something to think about as we talk about the cruciferous
vegetables, the Brassica family. Pedram: Interesting. You know whatís interesting
about that? Iím going to take a quick side-step with you there, and weíll dance back to the
middle here is I was just talking to a doctor whoís doing a lot of research on this. What
he was saying was, ìLook. Even the fruits, and vegetables, and things that weíre eating
today looks so different than anything that was available back in the Paleo days that
it is not even fair to compare because you get a banana thatíd be mostly seeds and be
this big. Youíd get a carrot that would be mostly fiber in root.î These guys were working
a lot of fiber in their diet, taking a lot of bulk eating vegetables that we canít even
recognize today. Guess what. It wasnít like you were clubbing
a dear, and having big rib-eye steaks every day in those days. Meat was a treat. There
has been some emphasis on being, ìIím Paleo, so Iím going to *** chest, and eat steak
every day.î Thatís not really consistent with how often these guys had meat to eat.
I think if you keep the emphasis more on the vegetable side and you could have the lean
meats, the Paleo starts to make a lot more sense based on some of the literatures Iíve
been reading. Itís hard to compare apples to apples when basically everything that we
know of as food has been cultivated and prepared over thousands of years to yield more sugar
for us, to yield more carbohydrate for us. Sara: You got it. The perfect example of this
is corn. Now, it used to be that the corn that our Paleo ancestors ate was very dense.
It was not sweet, it was multi-colored, and now Ö Iím from Maryland. Thatís where I
was born and raised. Maryland sweetcorn, itís white. Itís super sweet. Itís got a high
glycemic index. Itís very different from what our Paleo ancestors were eating, so totally
on board with this. In fact, what I call myself, Iím really an agnostic when it comes to food
plants because I think we all have to figure out what works for us. I would call the way
I eat Iím a Paleo-Vegan. Iím a vegan first like I really eat my vegetables.
I stay away from dairy, and then I throw in my meat as a condiment. Weíre totally getting
off topic. Weíre supposed to be talking about broccoli and sprouts here.
Pedram: Howís this for a hook? When we look at this broccoli extract, one of the things,
Iíll pull us back in to digestion here because I found this to be particularly interesting.
When they started, some Japanese researchers started looking at the link between broccoli
and H. pylori which is almost epidemic proportions here in the West. Everyone got these proton
pump inhibitors, and taking antacids, and taking antibiotics for their ulcers. H. pylori
is a culprit in that all sort of universe of American hotdogs and beer, and ìI donít
know why my stomach hurtsî world, and so Ö
Sara: GMOs, another future topic. Pedram: Yes. Absolutely. I think we should
bring Jeffrey Smith in as a guest for a show there because heís got a lot to say about
that subject. This is a small study, 20 individuals; but they had a significant decrease in H.
pylori infections with a diet rich broccoli sprouts. Hereís the point that I want to
make is you mentioned very stoutly that you got to eat 20 pounds of broccoli to be able
to get certain effects with say the DIM and all these kinds of stuff. What theyíre looking
at in this study are actually the organic broccoli sprouts. Iím just going to take
a pause here. Weíre going to put in a picture. This is what they look like guys, okay? Broccoli
sprouts. Sara: Theyíre so cute.
Pedram: Theyíre so cute, and theyíre delicious, and theyíre really good for you. What do
you say Sara? You want to jump in to just the enzymes, and what these guys talked about
in the study? You want me to read it, or you want to get in to it?
Sara: Guide me a little here. Pedram: Here, Iíll just go.
Sara: I got distracted by how cute the sprouts are. I started to think about this time in
my life, 10 years ago, when I bought a sprouter, and I was sprouting all these vegetables including
broccoli. What happened to that sprouter? I donít think it made the recent move. You
keep going. Pedram: You went off on a Buddhist dilemma,
right? Thoughts train. Sara: Exactly.
Pedram: Chemo protection. What is that, whatís it doing, and what are these substances? Weíre
talking about sulforaphane, glucosinolate which has some cancer fighting properties
that theyíre finding in the part of Brassica family. They fed extracts. First, they start
with rats of course. Twenty female rats, five days. Expose them to a group that basically
had a very active carcinogen. My goodness, Iím going to try to pronounce that, dimethylbenzanthracene.
Sometimes, really bad form. The rats that received the extract developed fewer tumors.
Those that did get the tumors had smaller growths that took longer to develop.
What theyíre finding is the sulforaphane is very potent promoter phased to enzymes,
and broccoli contains unusually high levels of glucoraphanin which is basically naturally
occurring precursor to this substance. Then they started getting in to the sprouts which
have basically a particular sequence of anticancer elements. Although it has lower nutritional
content, the sulforaphane in sprouts is like much higher. One of the best parts about this
is 72 hours later, youíre still getting the antioxidant effects which are significantly
longer than vitamin C, E, and beta-carotene while still boosting the effect of some of
these vitamins. Just that first glance, itís like, ìYeah. Nice. Broccoli wins.î
Sara: Thank you for doing the heavy lifting on describing the data because these are terms
that even we have a difficult time pronouncing. The take-home message to me is that you are
amplifying the innate intelligence of the body by using the Brassica family especially
the sprouts. Itís just a very potent promoter of the detoxification and the antioxidant
effect in your body. Now, I think we should translate that in to some plain English. How
do you talk about antioxidants, Pedram? How do you describe that to people in a way that
they can understand? Because once you start talking about redox, I think most people are
just like, ìLa, la, la. Let me check Facebook.î Pedram: I guess Iím the go-to metaphor guy
here. Sara: Yes, you are.
Pedram: One of the ways I like to talk to people about antioxidants is cops on the beat.
Youíve got Ö Sara: Wait. Why is it that we always have
like the endocrine disruptors are the prisoners? Okay. Keep going.
Pedram: Yeah. Exactly. Itís the martial artist in me. Itís a defensive stance. You got all
kinds of things that are going wrong. You have riots potentially going off in your body;
and you got people that are cruising around, keeping the order, keeping the peace. These
antioxidants, when you have oxidative stress, oxygen is wonderful if you breathe it. When
you got free floating oxygen system, it starts messing around. Without getting in to too
much biochem or O. chem, basically you donít want a negative charged substance bouncing
around, and creating other cascade effects in your system. These substances, what we
call the antioxidants will bind the bad guys, and help balance out these cascades of Ö
Itís almost like a pinball reaction. Once you have an activity thatís creating
this oxidative stress, it starts to spread until you canít stop it. This is actually
an interesting conversation Iíd like us to have with say Clint Ober and some of these
guys that are doing this earthing stuff because to me, I find it particularly interesting
to have free flowing electrons binding the protons and neutralizing the system. What
these substances are doing is helping offset the damage thatís coming from, A, life, and
B, toxins most specifically because thereís a lot of things that will create oxidative
damage in the body, and really functioning as Ö
If you think about it, this is the stuff we used to eat. We developed symbiotically with
our environment, and we had these things in our diet all the time. They were just part
of our relationship with earth and environment, and food, and everything. Until a few hundred
years ago, it wasnít even in question. Maybe a few thousand years ago, we started cultivating
certain crops and avoiding that stuff. Now, itís gotten to the point where food is in
a box, food doesnít look like food anymore. A lot of these things that we would take for
granted as a hunter-gatherer that would just be in our diet and be available to ourselves
are no longer there. Sara: Fantastic. Iím just going to recap
your analogy because you did such a lovely job there. Just super simple, the antioxidants,
the broccoli sprouts are acting like good cops in your body. Theyíre on a beat, cops
on a beat. I really love that idea. Theyíre getting rid of the bad stuff in your body
which we need. Itís just something that all of us generate. The other thing that these
broccoli sprouts are doing is theyíre working on phase 2 of your detox pathway in your liver.
I think this is so important because our detoxification system in our body, in our liver gets overwhelmed
especially in women of a certain age, 35 plus. The same system that detoxifies in your liver
also deals with the endocrine disruptors, also deals with estrogen by the way which
is relevant for both men and women, so we want to keep supporting these detox systems.
This is one of the ways to do it, broccoli sprouts. Who knew? You can get them from your
health food store. You can get them from Whole Foods. You can get them from Ö I think my
local market, my little corner market that is off my house has them.
Pedram: Itís not hard. Broccoli isnít that esoteric of a compound. Itís easy to get
a hold of. Check this out. Just one ounce of broccoli sprouts contains more sulforaphane
than two pounds of broccoli. Sara: Easy.
Pedram: This stuff is potent. Yeah. Sara: That is good for estrogen metabolism,
my friends. Pedram: I really like the idea of sprouting
yourself. Call me an old hippie or something, but if you could sprout Ö
Sara: You old hippie. Pedram: Old hippie, yeah. Old, young hippie,
somewhere in between. Thereís something very magical about preparing stuff at home, letting
the kids get involved with it, just being able to harvest your own stuff, and you know
the goodness stuff thatís coming from it. If you have an opportunity to sprout it on
your own, wonderful. Get a sprouter. Do this stuff at home. If not, grocery store will
be happy to sell it to you. Thatís really kind of that you vote with your dollars a
bit too. Theyíre also happy to sell you a box of sugar cereal. They donít care what
theyíre selling you as long as theyíre selling you something. If you start buying good stuff
from them, they start stocking more good stuff. Again, weíre trying to encourage more people
to really vote with their dollars, and buy good produce from the stores which will then
Ö Itís really just economics, then it creates a market. Theyíll know they have customers,
then they could go put in the purchases, and bring more broccoli sprouts to us, and we
all win. Sara: Vote with your dollars, and also spread
the word. Share this video with your friends. Send it to eight friends that you really care
about. Maybe you know that they need to detoxify, they need to get a good cop on the beat, they
need their broccoli sprout. Share this because this will give them the why that allows them
to step in to the grace of better health, better wellness, better vitality.
Pedram: Amen to that. Yeah, guys. The greatest gift you could give people is gift of health,
and health comes through knowledge and self-empowerment first. Today, health is coming in a green
color. Itís broccoli colored. One of the things I want to definitely talk about is
this ability to prevent cancer. The indole-3-carbinol which is a powerful Ö Itís a powerful antioxidant
with the stuff weíre talking about has anticarcinogenic properties that are also present in broccoli.
It helps in the hindering of the development of prostate, cervical, and breast cancer,
while also where you talked about the phase 2 detox, improving the liver health.
How does something Ö? A lot of people say that. Itís like, ìHow can something be good
for everything?î Itís like, well, you know what? Ask the guy above. Nature is amazing
in that capacity. There are foods that are just good because theyíre full spectrum.
They allow for multiple systems to be enhanced. Remember, your body has its own innate healing
capacity. These foods are really helping unlock DNA sequences to allow for that to happen
in epigenetic capacity. Theyíre also giving you the fiber, nutrients, and the things that
you need to allow the body to have what it needs to really recruit the cops, and get
the cops out there. Sara: Excellent point. One of the things weíre
talking about here is nutrient density. Iím going to pull out a little Joel Fuhrman here,
and talk about how we want to eat foods that really have a high nutrient density. I was
giving the example earlier of the Maryland sweetcorn, and how itís so completely different
from what our ancestors eat. Same thing with many other vegetables that we eat. If you
buy some of your vegetables from maybe a big-box grocery store, they are probably not going
to be the same nutrient density as the vegetables that you get from your local organic farmer.
We want to be thinking about this. Here, we have an example of broccoli sprouts
where the nutrient dense Ö high even compared to broccoli. We want to be eating these foods.
We want high nutrient density. I just thought I would do a little homage to Joel Fuhrman
here. Pedram: Thank you, Joel.
Sara: Thank you, Joel. Pedram: Thank you, Joel. Itís obviously easy
to get. Broccoli, actually for those of you whoíve gardened, is pretty easy to grow to.
You could do the sprouts, you could do the broccoli itself. Again, the reasons why you
would do the Ö I would probably do both. The sprouts are great. If youíre shake person,
itís easy to just to cut some sprouts, chuck them in your shake in the morning and go.
I also like fully grown broccoli because of the added fiber and the added bulk. If you
are someone who has a problem with say tidy, if you are someone who says say wants to lose
10, 15 pounds, you can eat a lot of broccoli, like I said, to feel filled up, have good
health benefits, and then not make certain bad food decisions because youíre full, and
you feel pretty good. Whatís one of the major symptoms that people
complain about going to the doctor today too is constipation. Itís a real big problem
in patient populations around the country and around the world really, Western world.
A lot of that has to do with fiber and hydration. Broccoli has fiber and water.
Sara: This is our queue to drink. Pedram: All right. Water timeout. Everyone
out there. Take a sip. Sara: Drink some water. Such an important
point, Pedram. I think when you come home from a busy day at work, and youíve got those
jungle drums telling you to eat the crap instead of eating the good stuff, thatís a great
place to make a smoothie. You may be throw in your broccoli sprouts together with the
rest of the smoothie that you like to make. I encourage people to make a smoothie ideally
in something that extracts nutrients and doesnít get rid of the fiber. I love to use my Vitamix
or NutriBullet. Throw in the broccoli, throw in the broccoli sprouts together with Ö I
like it with vanilla and maybe a little mocha. Thatís what I do when I come home from work
when Iím a little jingly like a little crazy-pants, and Iím starting to think that chocolate
and a glass of wine sounds a good idea. Pedram: If you wait maybe another 15 minutes,
it will be a good idea until it become a bad idea. Thatís really the point is if Iím
hungry, I can eat this desk, and Iíll wake up burping going, ìUh-oh.î You got to be
two steps ahead of your sugar cravings by understanding that you are getting hungry,
and youíre going to start making different kinds of decisions. This is actually a point.
Weíve gotten a few questions from people on this. We welcome questions, so wherever
youíre seeing this, just put in the comment thread. Theyíll get it to us. Weíll try
to answer them within the next show or two. People keeps saying, ìWhatís a good smoothie
recipe?î I said, ìSure. I can give you nine different books, cookbooks from different
friends of ours who are all doing wonderful recipes for this, that, and the other.î Iím
going to ask you what yours is in a second, but hereís my answer to that is whatever
you got thatís in the kitchen thatís fresh, chuck it in. Iím a big CSA guy. We love Community-Supported
Agriculture. What we do is you get this bucket of stuff every week or two that comes in sourced
from local organic farms. For us, itís in Southern California. They have them all over.
If youíre wondering what Iím talking about, just stop and google CSA, Community-Supported
Agriculture. Thereís a pick-up spot or some place that bring it to your house. You just
get a bunch of stuff in there. A lot of times people will say, ìI donít even know what
that is,î and theyíll have little like tutorials, and say, ìWell, this is beet, and this is
why you would want to eat it, and whatever.î For me, itís like fresh produce seasonal
and locally grown, so Iíll just go to the buck, and just pick a few things, and chuck
them in the blender, or chuck them in the NutriBullet or the blender, whatever it is.
Iím doing that day with maybe a coconut milk, a protein powder. Iíll either do Vega, or
Hamper, or something that sort, and you just got to see if you have any contrary activity.
I donít like to say, ìWell, eat ham because of this,î because some people donít tolerate
it well. I usually use a vegetable-based protein. I donít really even sweeten it because the
vegetables and stuff I put in there are fine. What do you do?
Sara: Well, I do similar things. Iím a working mom, so my situation is that when I get my
CSA Ö In fact, I get it Tuesday nights, so I just got it this morning. What I do is I
take the greens out because the greens are my top priority. Theyíre the backbone of
the food that I eat, and I slice them. I typically will get kale, or chard, or colored greens.
Iíll slice them pretty thin, and stick them in the freezer. Theyíre in a bag in the freezer,
and I can just grab a handful of it, and make smoothies using that. I happen to love chocolate,
so what I do, I actually got a little canister right here, so Iím going to show it.
I made a vegetable source of a protein powder thatís a little example here. I do the protein
powder. I happen to love chocolate, so Iíll do chocolate. I figure out exactly how many
greens I can put in there with some fiber, so that I donít taste the greens. You know
what I mean? Iím masking it with the chocolate. I happen to be a chocoholic, and this is one
of the ways I get my fix with chocolate using a really nourishing blend. Chocolate, my greens,
filtered water, and then I add in some fiber because we know that we need about 40 to 50
grams of fiber a day. Most of us are getting only a fraction of that. Thatís how I make
my smoothies. I also make them in the morning, like Iíll
make them on Sunday, put them in a container with a little shaker in it, and then I have
it stocked in the fridge, so that when Iím feeling jingly and low in blood sugar, and
Iím starting to make some bad choices, Iíll take it out of the fridge, shake it up, and
drink it. Pedram: Fantastic. That you guys is probably
one of the most important take-home messages that youíre going to get from anything you
hear is have it ready. Dell Taco has it ready for you, McDonaldís has it ready for you,
and thatís the urge. Itís like, ìOh my god. Iím hungry. Itís like predictably,
itís new, and I canít believe Iím hungry.î Just plan ahead, have it ready, and youíll
find that youíre making good food decisions the whole way through, and youíre making
guilt-free ones. On that point, by the way guys, sorry, I forgot. I soak chia seeds.
When I get up to go run the dogs in the morning, Iíll soak some chia seeds. By the time I
come back, Iím ready to go. Iíll chuck the soaked chia seeds in to my smoothie as well.
Thatís where I get a lot of my soluble fiber and all that.
Fiber is a big one. Thanks for reminding me about that. Iím a big chia seed fan. I like
the flavor. That gooey fiber seems to have all kinds of good health benefits that we
keep reading about. Sara: Itís magical. I do three tablespoons.
Iím like big in to fiber, big in to chia. I take three tablespoons measured dry, soak
them in water, and then theyíre ready for you in 5 to 10 minutes.
Pedram: Yeah, itís quick. Iíve had people say, ìI soak them overnight.î You donít
really need to. Five, 10, 15 minutes. As soon as you could start to see that goo around
them, itís good to go. The rest of it will happen while itís going through you, and
it will do. It has that broom-like effect that will start just clearing things out through
the GI tract, and as those broccoli in a lot of ways. I just want to hit a couple of bullet
points on this because our friend broccoli is getting a little lonely there again.
Sara: Well, you just tossed out the broom-like effect. I like that metaphor too.
Pedram: All right. Cool. Again, I could be the metaphor man. Letís see. Prevents cancer,
rich in the glucoraphanin which can be processed by human body to compound compatible preventing
cancer. We talked about the H. pylori. Itís good for the nervous system. It has high potassium
content. It regulates blood sugar because of the possible Ö Magnesium, calcium, and
potassium in the broccoli. Sorry, I said sugar, blood pressure. Effectively reducing cholesterol
because of all the soluble fiber which is proven to be effective in such a thing. Itís
just a great addition to the diet for the reasons that I keep harping on.
I like to eat, man. I really do. If you grew up Middle Eastern and stuff too, theyíll
put a lot of rice in front of you, and just look at you like youíre crazy, or you offended
them if you donít finish your plate. Old habits die hard, so Iíll have a big plate
of vegetables with broccoli and stuff like that, and Iíll be full. Iíll be good, and
itís really three, four, five hundred calories, and youíre really stuffing yourself with
broccoli. Itís good to have a protein source, have some lettuce, have some mixed colored
greens, and itís a great addition to a diet. Sara: Love it. I want to add one other little
anecdote here, Pedram, and that is Ö I was talking to a cancer researcher who lives in
the Midwest who said to me, ìI really believe that sugar is the bull. Sugar is feeding cancer.î
What he eats primarily is vegetables. We keep talking about this over and over again, but
I just want to emphasize this point. Much of the research weíre talking about today
reinforces what this cancer researcher is saying. There was another study that I think
we didnít mention yet which is where they took a hundred individuals, and they gave
the broccoli sprouts. They compared them to a hundred individuals that were given placebo.
They found that those who got the broccoli sprouts were very low in a particular chemical
that causes DNA damage. This is part of that link to cancer that weíre talking about,
but the answer here is broccoli sprouts, having more vegetables, thatís really the theme
song. Pedram: Guys, donít read this the wrong way.
If you have stage 4 cancer, youíre not just taking broccoli to cure yourself off the disease.
It ainít going to have plenty of vegetables in your life, but what weíre talking about
is prevention and a lifestyle that can offset this stuff. Once in a while, we get comments
saying, ìHow can you say a broccoli cures cancer?î Itís like, ìThat is not what weíre
saying. Weíre saying is that it has anticancer fighting capacity.î If youíre eating broccoli
every day, and live the right lifestyle, and not breathing out of a diesel pipe, chances
are youíre going to have better chances of not developing these things. Thatís really
what it is. Itís just about calculation of risk, and
hedging your bat in with lifestyle because cancer is out there. Itís doing what itís
doing. What we need to do is live a lifestyle thatís most conducive to offsetting these
things and these risks that are out there, and increasing in magnitude if you would for
everyone who lives in the Western world. I say, to anyone who lives on this planet at
this point. Sara: You got it. The last point I would make
here is we want to create a good neighborhood. Weíre not talking about the cure-all for
cancer. Weíre talking about creating a good neighborhood. One of the key ways to set up
a good neighborhood is with your broccoli sprouts, so get some broccoli sprouts today.
Pedram: Dr. Sara. Always a pleasure. I hope that we can inspire some people to talk about,
get some more broccoli on their table. You guys keep sending questions. Weíll weave
them in as we go. I think weíre going to be talking about gut health and the Ö Yes.
I know what you want to talk about next week. All right. Weíre going to go there. Thatís
what weíre talking about, the bio dome, and what it means to have healthy gut flora. Thatís
a continuation of this H. pylori conversation, and then really getting in to what good gut
health means. Thatís what weíll talk about next time.
Sara: Sounds great, Pedram. Thanks everybody. Pedram: Thank you, everybody. See you next
time.