Genetically enhanced
Professor Richard Mithen describes how their work was originally inspired by reports of the anti-cancer properties of glucoraphanin, which occurs only in this cruciferous vegetable. They chose a wild species of broccoli with high levels of this compound and crossed it with a cultivated version to make a hybrid. Breeding the plant so that it has the high chemical content of its wild parent, yet looks like a normal broccoli, has taken 15 years. They’ve even been able to take out the sulphur compounds that can give broccoli a bitter flavour.

A key part of their work was studying the health benefits of the broccoli. Mithen explains, ‘identifying glucoraphanin itself was important and that was done mainly with human cell cultures. Taking cells from humans and putting them in Petri dishes and adding the compound to see how the cells react. That way we can identify compounds which have the anti-cancer ability.’

Studying the health benefits
Getting funding for a project that has to take so long is challenging. Also, Mithen points out, ‘it’s quite easy to design human trials for drugs. You know about a placebo control, if you have one tablet designed to do something, you have another tablet that is exactly the same, but might be just a sugar pill. You can’t do that when you are using vegetables. Trying to produce evidence that it will reduce the risk of cancer is difficult, as cancer can take 20 years to develop. We’ve been able to show the health benefits for cardiovascular disease but for cancer we’re still working on that.’

To gain a benefit, Mithen recommends eating Beneforté two or three times a week as part of a healthy diet. Already on sale in the UK, the super broccoli, is on its way to the rest of the world. Satisfaction for most scientists is publishing a paper, for Mithen and his team it’s knowing their food is being eaten and is improving our health.