The concentrated extract of broccoli spouts can help patients with type 2 diabetes controling their blood glucose, according to a new study. The results show the possibility of a much needed alternative to control this condition, which has become a global epidemic. Type 2 diabetes affects more than 300 million people worldwide and up to 15% of patients cannot benefit from first-line treatment with metformin because of the risk of kidney damage.
In search of a more viable alternative, Annika Axelsson and colleagues from the Lund University in Sweden used a computational approach to identify compounds that could counteract gene expression associated with type 2 diabetes. The researchers created a signature for type 2 diabetes based on 50 genes. Then, using publicly available expression data sets, they analyzed 3852 drug compounds that could potentially reverse the disease.
According to the research, published in Science Translational Medicine, the most promising chemical compound was sulforaphane, a natural compound found in cruciferous vegetables. The results showed that this compound reduced glucose production in a liver cell culture and eliminated liver gene expression from a diseased state in diabetic rats.
When the researchers provided the concentrated broccoli extract to obese patients with uncontrolled type 2 diabetes, in a 12-week placebo-controlled randomized trial, they showed significantly lower fasting blood glucose levels than the controls. The authors argue that the development of genetic signatures to investigate large public repositories of gene expression data could be a valuable strategy for quickly identifying clinically relevant compounds.
Source: Science Translational Medicine, Agencia ID
