Broccoli Reduces Bad Cholesterol

I enjoy studies like today’s and yesterday’s; they make it easy to walk down the grocery aisle and link foods to specific benefits—strawberries and insulin sensitivity, cholate and weight loss, and today, broccoli and heart health. And my guess is I’m not the only one; consumers want to see “familiar faces"—ingredients they recognize and can easily spot in the store and on the ingredient label. In fact, as the industry is well aware of, an entire movement is dedicated to clean labels.

So the latest study about broccoli, published in Molecular Nutrition & Food Research online, found a diet rich in high-glucoraphanin (HG) broccoli reduces low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (April 7, 2015).

A total of 130 volunteers were recruited to two independent double blind, randomly allocated, parallel dietary intervention studies and were assigned to consume either 400 g of standard broccoli or 400 g of HG broccoli per week for 12 weeks.

In study one consisting of 37 volunteers, the HG broccoli diet reduced plasma LDL cholesterol by 7.1 percent, whereas standard broccoli reduced LDL by 1.8 percent. In study two with 93 volunteers, the HG broccoli diet resulted in a reduction of 5.1 percent, whereas standard broccoli reduced LDL by 2.5 percent. When data from the two studies were combined the reduction in LDL cholesterol by the HG broccoli was significantly greater than standard broccoli.Evidence from two independent human studies indicates that consumption of high-glucoraphanin broccoli significantly reduces plasma LDL.