It's long been known that cruciferous vegetables like broccoli can protect against different cancers including breast, prostate, and colon cancers. Now a new study from the University of Illinois suggests that including broccoli in the diet may also offer protection against liver cancer and arrest the development of fatty liver or nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).
As part of the research, mice were grouped into four groups. One group received a control diet, another group was fed a control diet with freeze-dried broccoli, the third group was given a Western diet, high in saturated fats and added sugars, and the fourth group was fed a Western diet with freeze-dried broccoli.
As you may know, a high-fat, high-sugar diet is associated with excess body fat accumulation, and leads to the development of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which when left untreated can contribute to cirrhosis and liver cancer.
In the mouse model, the researchers, led by Elizabeth Jeffery, a University of Illinois emeritus professor of nutrition, evaluated not only the impact of broccoli on the formation and progression of cancerous tumors in the liver, but also the health of the liver and how the liver was metabolizing lipids because of the high-fat diet.
The results of the study revealed that in mice on the Western diet both the number of cancer nodules and the size of the cancer nodules increased in the liver. But when broccoli was added to the diet, the number of nodules decreased though there was no effect on the size of the nodules.
Additionally, mice on the Western diet had increased fatty liver and had developed lipid globules on the liver. However, when broccoli was added to the diet, it stopped too much uptake of fat into the liver, by decreasing lipid absorption and increasing the output of lipid from the liver.
The research findings are published in the Journal of Nutrition.
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