Forbes Brocolli Treatment

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PHARMA & HEALTHCARE 10/13/2014 @ 3:00PM 14,125 views

Scientists Gain Autism Insight By Studying BroccoliComment Now

The results of a new autism study were so surprising even one of the authors

called it far- fetched, at least on the surface. If you tell someone youre

treating autism with broccoli, they would think you are off your rocker, said

Paul Talalay, who is head of the Laboratory for Molecular Pharmacology at

Johns Hopkins University.

He and his collaborators announced today that when they gave a compound

called sulforaphane, derived from broccoli, to a small group of severely to

moderately autistic teenage boys and young men, there was a dramatic

improvement in the subjects symptoms. They were calmer, more social and

in some cases, more verbal.

This experiment was no long shot, however. It grew out of a long history

involving the intersection of two well-developed courses of research.

Coming at it from one side was Talalay, who had been following his curiosity

about cancer prevention and vegetables. From another angle came pediatric

neurologist Andrew Zimmerman, who had been fascinated by anecdotal

reports from parents that their autistic children improved during bouts of

fever.

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English: Broccoli Deutsch: Broccoli (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The study was small, involving just 29 patients who got the compound and 15

on a placebo. The results were rejected by the New England Journal of

Medicine, but accepted into the Proceedings of the National Academy of

Science. (Addendum: Talalay is a member of the National Academy of

Sciences, and academy members can submit papers to this journal without

standard peer review. Such papers are reviewed but the authors can choose

their own reviewers.)

That suits the researchers fine, since they say the findings must be replicated

before they would be of clinical use, and yet the paper reveals new insights

into the physiological underpinnings of autism or autism spectrum disorder

which affects about one in 68 people. The result implies these symptoms

can be changed, said Zimmerman. They are not set in stone.

Talalay explained that his part of this line of inquiry started in the 1980s,

when he was investigating cancer prevention then a rather radical and

unexplored topic. (Talalay is now in his mid-80s and has spent 51 years

doing research at Johns Hopkins.)

Experimental work at the time was showing that certain food preservatives

known as BHA and BHT appeared to prevent cancer in animals. I asked the

question, how does it work? The answer to that question, he said, is at the

heart of this entire field of work.

The answer, he found, was that cells have evolved an intrinsic mechanism to

protect themselves from inevitable damage carcinogenic chemicals,

radiation, and damage that comes from the way animal cells use oxygen. We

need oxygen for respiration but the process leaves byproducts called oxygen



radicals, or free radicals, which damage our cells DNA. Talalay found that

BHT and BHA amplified the production of enzymes that protect cells from

this kind of degradation.

That led him to a very basic question why are vegetables good for us? Could

it be they contain substances that rev up those natural mechanism for

protecting cells? To find out, he sent his graduate students to the grocery

store.

They brought back a variety of vegetables, but those with the most dramatic

effects were the so-called cruciferous vegetables, including broccoli,

cauliflower and cabbage. From broccoli he and his students extracted a single

compound called sulforaphane with a strong protective effect. His work on

the substance led to a front page New York Times story in 1992. It also led to

a whole body of research on sulforaphane, he said, with three or four papers

published every week exploring its mechanism of action.

At the same time and unbeknownst to Talalay, pediatric neurologist Andrew

Zimmermen of Massachusetts General Hospital was investigating anecdotal

reports that fever temporarily makes some autistic people more relaxed, more

communicative and in some cases better able to express their thoughts in

words.

That line of inquiry led him to link the phenomenon to a physical mechanism

fever induces cells to produce substances called heat shock proteins, which

can protect cells. He said a body of scientific work also showed that some

autistic people have abnormalities in their cells they show increased

damage from oxygen radicals, high levels of inflammation and other signs

that the normal protective mechanisms are not working.

About five years ago, Zimmerman came to Talalay and Johns Hopkins

colleague Kirby Smith and they started looking at the cell biology of autism

and substances that might have a positive effect. That was a wonderful

collaboration, said Zimmerman. At the time, it wasnt clear whether the heat

shock proteins would have any relevance, or whether the cellular

abnormalities were a cause or a symptom of autism.

Zimmerman said hed never heard of sulforaphane, the broccoli compound,

but the collaborators found it seemed to reverse the cellular abnormalities

associated with autism. That was a new realization for us, said Talalay. It

led them to recruit people for a small human study. They used young males,

aged 13 to 27 with moderate to severe autism. 29 got a standardized dose of

the sulforaphane more than you could get from eating broccoli. 15 got a

placebo.

The results were striking. I was bowled over by it, said Talalay. The



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improvements were almost too good to be true a nagging sign that there

might have been a mistake. He said they decided to have the results audited

by an independent firm. But what they really need is independent

confirmation.

Though theres no harm in encouraging people eating broccoli, Talalay warns

that when they tested the vegetable from various supermarkets, the levels of

sulforaphane vary by a factor of 20. But in the meantime theres a lot more to

the study and its history, he said. The insight it provides into what autism is

all about may more important.

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