Cruciferous vegetables have long been cherished for their health benefits. Broccoli, cabbage, collards, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale and bok choy, just to name a few, contain several plant compounds that are important for optimal health.
Cruciferous vegetables have long been cherished for their health benefits. Broccoli, cabbage, collards, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, kale and bok choy, just to name a few, contain several plant compounds that are important for optimal health, including powerful chemoprotective compounds.
One of the most well-known of these is sulforaphane, an organic sulfur. Studies have shown sulforaphane supports normal cell function and division while causing apoptosis (programmed cell death) in the colon, liver, prostate, breast and tobacco-induced lung cancer.
Just three servings of broccoli per week may reduce a man’s risk of prostate cancer by more than 60%.
Another important phytochemical found in cruciferous veggies is indole-3 carbinol (I3C), which in your gut is converted into diindolylmethane (DIM). DIM in turn boosts immune function and, like sulforaphane, plays a role in the prevention and treatment of cancer.
Cruciferous compound can break antibiotic resistance
Interestingly, researchers now believe that DIM may be a potent weapon against antibiotic-resistant pathogens as well.
Israel21c.org reports:
“A phytochemical derived from cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli, breaks down the biofilm that lets bacteria resist antibiotics, according to a study from Ben-Gurion University in Israel …
“The paper, co-authored by researchers from Near East University and Girne American University in Cyprus, was published in the journal Pharmaceutics.
“The scientists found that phytochemical 3,3′-diindolylmethane (DIM) successfully broke down the biofilms protecting pathogens including Acinetobacter baumannii and Pseudomonas aeruginosa 65% and 70% of the time, respectively …
“When the team introduced DIM into an infected wound, it sped up the healing process significantly. ‘Our findings show promise for other avenues of research in addition to known classes of antibiotics,’ said [professor Ariel] Kushmaro.”
Antibiotic resistance is a serious problem
This could potentially be the breakthrough we’ve been searching for. Antimicrobial resistance has been on the rise for decades, thus making infections that were previously easy to treat a serious threat again.
According to the World Health Organization, antimicrobial resistance is “one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity,” and the primary cause of this man-made epidemic is the widespread misuse of antibiotics.
Antibiotic overuse occurs not just in human medicine, but also in food production. In fact, agricultural uses account for about 80% of all antibiotic use in the U.S., so it’s a major source of human antibiotic consumption.
Animals are often fed antibiotics at low doses for disease prevention and growth promotion, and those antibiotics are transferred to you via meat and other animal products, and even via the manure used as crop fertilizer.
Many pathogens have also developed resistance to more than one drug, so-called pan-resistance, which makes treating them even more problematic. And, while pan-resistant superbugs are increasing, the development of new antibiotics to tackle them has come to a near halt.
According to the WHO:
DIM for pan-resistant bacteria
The four pathogenic bacteria investigated in the study cited above — Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Acinetobacter baumannii, Serratia marcescens and Providencia stuartii — are all gram-negative bacteria, and in the initial investigation, DIM reduced biofilm formation in all four by as much as 80%.
Of these, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii are both resistant to multiple drugs, so in follow-up tests they focused on these two specifically. As previously noted, DIM was able to inhibit biofilm formation in these bacteria by 65% to 70%.
When DIM was combined with the antibiotic tobramycin, biofilm growth of P. aeruginosa was diminished by 98%.
Non-healing wounds are often infected with pan-resistant bacteria, and it’s the biofilm that prevents the tissues from healing back together.
To test whether DIM could work topically in these scenarios, the researchers infected puncture wounds on pigs with P. aeruginosa, and then applied a cream containing either DIM alone, the antibiotic gentamycin alone, or DIM plus gentamycin combined.
Wounds treated with DIM for 10 days healed significantly better than untreated wounds, thanks to a significant reduction in biofilm formation, and the combination of DIM plus antibiotic worked even better. Wounds treated with gentamycin alone saw no improvement.
