Health&Wellness Magazine August 2014 | Page 17

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