Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 17, 1992 TAG: 9203170123
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: Los Angeles Daily News
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Even President Bush took time out of his campaign to address the matter - saying that he still doesn't like broccoli, no matter how good it is for him.
"The president may not want to change his mind, but we are hoping to encourage others to eat better," Talalay said Sunday at a New York hotel where he prepared for a network television interview Monday morning.
Talalay and his fellow researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine spent more than a decade studying how cells fight off molecules that cause cancer.
During the past year, they isolated a broccoli ingredient - sulforaphane - which causes cells to speed production of specialized enzymes that work against carcinogenic chemicals.
Talalay said his team experimented with broccoli because they knew the popular vegetable is a key to health and contains the anti-cancer enzymes.
"We wanted to use a vegetable that everyone ate," Talalay said. "There's no point in working with something like ginger if no one is going to eat it."
Consumption of broccoli in the United States has climbed 800 percent in the last two decades, from one-half pound per person in 1970 to 4.5 pounds in 1989, the molecular pharmacologist said.
The researchers also developed a test to detect and measure the amount of sulforaphane and related anti-carcinogens in food.
The results of the study were published in the Sunday issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
"We've all known that eating vegetables like broccoli is good for us. What we have done is put somewhat of a chemical handle on why they are good for us," Talalay said.
"A lot more research needs to be done on what the consumption of broccoli does. But it's a start."
Talalay said studies still need to be done on the effects broccoli has on animals and humans, and research also is needed on what other vegetables contain sulforaphane.
Talalay said he was surprised by the attention the John Hopkins study drew.
"My phone has been ringing off the hook since this came out Friday," he said.
"I've gotten calls from as far away as Melbourne, Australia, and Dallas. My wife went to the store and she could hardly find any broccoli - they had nearly sold out."
Talalay admitted his report is going to make him popular with a lot of mothers who will use it as ammunition to encourage their children to eat broccoli.
"But right now we don't advocate eating a large quantity of broccoli," Talalay said.
"I'm not in the position to tell you to eat it three or four times a week. A lot of research still needs to be done."
But Talalay confessed the he eats the flowery green vegetable two or three times a week.
For awhile during his research, he was eating broccoli as often as three times a day.
"My wife got a little tired of that," he said.
Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.