Broccoli gets a bad rep—it’s tasteless, weirdly chewy, smells like gas, looks like a clump of tiny trees, and is probably every eight-year-old’s worst nightmare. Lately, the vegetable seems to have hired good PR for an image overhaul.
During the Winter Olympics this year, athletes were downing shots made with broccoli sprout extracts before their races and training sessions, hoping to gain an edge in their performance and recover faster. The shots are courtesy of a Swedish company called Nomio, whose formula banks on sulforaphane, a compound found in vegetables like broccoli and kale. It is said to help with boosting endurance and lowering blood lactate levels, particularly useful when athletes’ muscles are going through hell. In a WSJ interview, Norwegian skier Emil Iversen, who is a 2022 Olympic silver medalist, says that Nomio helps him rebound from the energy-sapping uphill sections of cross-country courses and recover faster in the small breaks they have.
Not just limited to its liquid form, sulforaphane in the form of supplements is also taking off in the functional medicine realm with players like Broc Shot, The Mara Labs’ BrocElite, and NooTropics Depot's SulfoMax spreading the word about its underrated benefits for cellular, gut, and skin health. Kim Kardashian, for one, is convinced. In August, she joined Broc Shot as a brand advocate after finding that its supplements, available in both powder and capsule form, helped calm down her psoriasis (the dietary supplement is the first one recognised by the National Psoriasis Foundation).
So what exactly is this magical compound?
“Sulforaphane only gets created when you chop or chew broccoli because a precursor called glucoraphanin interacts with the enzyme myrosinase. Other leafy vegetables also contain it, but right now broccoli is at the forefront because it has the first two precursors in larger amounts, especially sprouted broccoli or broccoli seeds. Any sort of heat destroys the enzyme present in broccoli used to make sulforaphane,” explains Dr Juhi Agarwal, a Mumbai-based clinical nutritionist. Supplements offer the concentrated form of sulforaphane, which acts “like a mild stressor in our body, then triggering its defense mechanisms and thereby increasing antioxidant synthesis to fight that stress and detox itself”, she says. So, keeping that mechanism in mind, improved skin health makes some sense as your cells are fighting to clear any toxins.
Deepta Nagpal, a dietician and nutritionist, has been throwing a handful of raw broccoli sprouts into her salads and meals religiously for the last four years, making sure to chew properly to activate the sulforaphane conversion. The effects have built up over time; she found the most noticeable difference to be decreased muscle soreness after her workouts. “I feel so much clearer and sharper during the day without the usual afternoon sluggishness. From a clinical perspective, seeing my routine blood markers, especially inflammation markers like hs-CRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein), staying consistently stable and optimal gives me a lot of reassurance about how my body is ageing,” Nagpal says.
You know the drill—proceed with caution
While the few studies conducted on sulforaphane look promising, Dr Agarwal is cautious about hailing it as a breakthrough just yet. Citing a trial conducted with a small group of athletes, she argues that lower lactate levels may not always be the reason for better performance or efficiency. It’s merely a marker and it would be a stretch to dismiss other factors. Then there’s also the question of dosage: “Ingesting concentrated sulforaphane everyday means that you’re constantly stressing your body, which isn’t ideal.” She wouldn’t advise those on chemotherapy medication or blood thinners to take sulforaphane supplements. “Those with autoimmune diseases should also avoid these supplements, because they trigger your defense mechanisms and could interfere with the job of your immunosuppressants,” she explains. Similarly, pregnant or breastfeeding women should also heed caution.
So, while sulforaphane may or not live up to the hype surrounding it, one thing is for sure. Broccoli has a shot at redemption.
