By Leo Galland, MD
One of your body’s most important enzymes for detoxifying is glutathione-S-transferase, but you can call it GST. It works by attaching the powerful antioxidant glutathione to a toxin so they both can be carried out of the body together.
That is one way you detox.
Scientists at UCLA showed that eating broccoli sprouts increases levels of GST. Broccoli sprouts are rich in a natural substance called glucoraphanin, which is very stable but not active in the body. When you crush raw broccoli sprouts, an enzyme also present in the sprouts converts glucoraphanin to its active derivative, sulforaphane. Keep in mind, sulforaphane is very active but unstable, so it must be eaten immediately.
The UCLA researchers had healthy volunteers eat ground-up broccoli sprouts over the course of three days. They found a significant increase of GST and other detoxifying enzymes in the subjects’ nasal cells. For people exposed to diesel exhaust, broccoli sprout extract decreased the amount of allergic inflammation found in their nasal secretions.
Broccoli sprouts can enhance GST, and GST can in turn help fight allergy. Remember the word glutathione—it’s so important for your ability to detox. And glutathione depends on GST.
Like all enzymes, GST is made in your cells according to a genetic blueprint. There are several different forms of GST, and children with asthma often have a defective gene for one of them.
Here’s something very significant: children with defective GST develop asthma only if they’re also exposed to cigarette smoke or other types of airborne pollution. It’s the combination of environmental toxins and impaired ability to detoxify that produces the diseases.
So, take away the tobacco smoke and other pollutants, and we can cut the risk of asthma for children. Now that is an idea that could help us all breathe a little easier.
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Leo Galland, MD is a board-certified internist recognized as the world leader in integrated medicine. He won the Linus Pauling Award and has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Self, and Men’s Fitness. He is the author of The Fat Resistance Diet, Power Healing, and Superimmunity for Kids. Learn more at drgalland.com.
Well Being Journal reprinted the excerpt with permission from The Allergy Solution: Unlock the Surprising, Hidden Truth about Why You Are Sick and How to Get Well by Leo Galland, MD (Hay House Inc; May 2016)
