Micah Stanley
Sulforaphane is a secondary plant substance that is found in particularly large amounts in broccoli sprouts and broccoli. Sulforaphane has a detoxifying and antioxidant effect and is therefore considered a natural anti-cancer agent. Recent studies indicate that sulforaphane can also help with weight loss.
Sulforaphane – The health maker also helps with weight loss
Sulforaphane is a highly effective plant substance that we have already reported a lot about and which, according to a new study (March 2017), should also actively help with weight loss. Sulforaphane – as has long been known – can always be useful when the organism needs to be protected against diseases or when healing processes have to be activated in the case of an existing disease. Because the substance from broccoli primarily has a strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effect.
Since almost every chronic disease is associated with inflammatory processes, the anti-inflammatory properties of sulforaphane can be used as part of holistic therapy for most chronic conditions.
Chronic inflammatory processes not only take place in diseases but also permanently in overweight in the so-called white adipose tissue. White adipose tissue stores fat. It is found under the skin, in the abdomen, and around the internal organs. White adipose tissue is considered a risk factor for e.g. B. cardiovascular diseases, some types of cancer, diabetes, and fatty liver.
Sulforaphane converts white fat into brown fat
Until now, it was believed that adults actually had hardly any brown adipose tissue. In the meantime, however, we know that, for example, athletes, i.e. physically active people, have significantly more brown fat cells than inactive people. Furthermore, if you don’t just sit in a warm apartment, but are repeatedly exposed to cold stimuli, you have more brown fat tissue, since this warms you up.
It has also been shown that white fat cells can even be converted into brown fat cells – a mechanism that is now being used to treat obesity. One speaks of the so-called browning of white fat cells.
Sulforaphane is said to be able to help with this tanning. It activates the conversion of white fat cells into brown fat cells. In addition, sulforaphane reduces the so-called metabolic endotoxemia.
White and brown fat: the difference
In addition to the white adipose tissue, there is also the brown adipose tissue. Babies in particular have this type of fatty tissue. However, with increasing age and also with increasing obesity, the brown adipose tissue dwindles more and more and makes room for the white adipose tissue.
This is quite unfavorable because brown adipose tissue is much healthier for humans than white. While white fat cells are 90 percent fat and only store the fat, brown fat cells are only 50 percent fat and also burn the fat for energy, preferably heat energy.
Brown fat cells are brown because they are full of mitochondria. These are small power plants that can convert fat into energy. Therefore, if you have brown fat tissue, you cannot become overweight so easily, since the fat is constantly being used for energy production.
Sulforaphane relieves the body’s intoxication
Metabolic endotoxemia is a type of internal poisoning that has its origins in the so-called leaky gut syndrome, i.e. in a permeable intestinal mucosa, which many people suffer from today (usually without knowing it). Leaky Gut Syndrome is suspected of being one of the causes of allergies, autoimmune diseases, and many other chronic ailments.
Toxic substances from the intestine, which should actually be excreted with the stool, now get into the bloodstream via the permeable intestinal mucosa in Leaky Gut Syndrome and cause latent inflammatory processes there.
This endotoxemia is not only associated with diabetes, arteriosclerosis, etc., but also with gradual damage to the liver, in the course of which u. forms a fatty liver.
Sulforaphane ensures a healthy intestinal flora
In a Japanese study from Kanazawa University, the researchers involved showed not only how sulforaphane helped convert white fat to brown fat, but also how it also reduced metabolic endotoxemia by positively influencing the composition of the gut flora (at least in mice). Because it applies:
- The healthier the intestinal flora, the better the damaged intestinal mucosa can heal.
- The more intact the intestinal mucosa, the fewer toxins get into the bloodstream, the less inflammatory processes take place, and the healthier the liver is.
- The healthier the intestinal flora, the less likely it is to be obese.
Sulforaphane stops weight gain
The Japanese study found that when animals were fed a high-fat diet, sulforaphane resulted in 15 percent less weight gain than the same diet but without sulforaphane supplementation. The percentage of abdominal fat fell by 20 percent and the fatty liver was also partially reduced.
The researchers announced the following results:
- Sulforaphane accelerates the tanning of white fat cells, which leads to increased energy consumption, increased fat burning, and thus the reduction of excess weight. The same mechanism initiates a reduction in chronic inflammatory processes originating from white adipose tissue and consequently reduces the risk of chronic diseases.
- Sulforaphane regulates the intestinal flora and reduces the proportion of those harmful bacteria in the intestine that form with a high-fat diet, accelerate the development of obesity, and are particularly responsible for the formation of intestinal toxins, which in turn contribute to metabolic endotoxemia.
What dose of sulforaphane is needed?
The study presented was carried out on mice, so a specific dose for humans is not known. We would integrate the sulforaphane recommended dose of 100 mg per day into the holistic weight loss program.
100 mg sulforaphane is considered a high dose and is contained in only a few preparations, e.g. B. in sulforaphane broccoli extract of effective nature (vegan capsules).
