August 2014
FOOD BITES
By Angela S. Hoover, Staff Writer
Clinical Trial: Broccoli
Can Protect Against
Air Pollution
A daily dose of broccoli helps
protect against the harmful effects of
air pollution per a study from John
Hopkins University. A 12-week clinical trial conducted in one of China’s
most polluted regions, Jiangsu
Province, found that consuming
a beverage with broccoli sprouts
helped participants to excrete toxins
associated with particle and ozone
air pollution. A half cup beverage of
sterilized water, pineapple and lime
juice and broccoli sprout powder
resulted in a significantly higher
excretion level of carcinogenic benzene and lung irritating acrolein
in the 300 men and women in the
clinical trial. A control group drank
the same beverage minus the broccoli sprout powder. All participants
had their urine and blood analyzed.
The rate of excretion of benzene
increased 61 percent and the rate of
excretion of acrolein increased by 23
percent for those whom drank the
broccoli sprout powder. Previous
studies have shown the broccoli
compound sulforaphane to have anticarcinogenic properties. Diets rich
in cruciferous vegetables are known
to reduce risk of chronic degenerative diseases, including cancer. The
researchers believe food-based strategies are complimentary to engineering solutions to reduce pollution
emissions in order to protect individuals. Air pollution is a significant
risk factor for several health conditions such as respiratory infections,
heart disease, COPD, stroke and
lung cancer. Other health impacts are
wheezing, coughing and asthma. The
most common sources of air pollution are particulates, ozone, nitrogen
dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Currently,
air pollution causes as many as 7
million deaths a year worldwide,
per the World Health Organization’s
estimates. In many parts of China, air
pollution has reached deadly levels.
“Super Banana” Gets
Human Trial
A genetically vitamin enhanced
banana will undergo a 6-week trial
in the U.S. The bananas are enriched
with alpha and beta carotene, which
the body converts to vitamin A.
The bananas look the same on the
outside but inside the flesh is more
orange. Australian researchers hope
to start growing the super bananas
in Uganda by 2020. This project
is spearheaded by the Queensland
University of Technology (QUT)
and is backed by the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation. Conclusive
results as to how well the super
bananas raise vitamin A levels in
American participants is expected
by the end of the year. Highland, or
East African cooking bananas, are a
staple food in East Africa but they
have low levels of micro-nutrients,
particularly pro-vitamin A and iron.
If the super bananas are approved
for commercial cultivation, QUT
expects the crop to expand in other
countries like Rwanda, parts of the
Democratic Republic of Congo,
Kenya and Tanzania. Additionally,
the same techniques could be applied
to West African plantains. Vitamin A
deficiency is blamed for the deaths
of 650,000 to 700,000 children
worldwide and about 300,000 going
blind annually.
Lab-Created Vanilla
Possibly Already In
the Market
Swiss biotech company Evolva
has developed a way to make vanillin, the chemical compound from
which the vanilla bean derives its
flavor, in a lab with genetically
engineered baker’s yeast. Using a
more advanced form of genetic
engineering called synthetic biology, or synbio, computer-generated
DNA are sliced into living cells to
construct new forms of life (mostly
yeasts and algae) from scratch.
Synbio was originally conceived to
produce biofuels that would offer
a viable replacement for fossil fuels
and chemicals but the industry has
not yet found a cost-effective fuel or
chemical product despite billions of
dollars in investment. In the hopes
of fin