Sulforaphane: how to supplement? Forms, dose, brands, timing

#41

BeatTheOdds, on the erucic acid content concern I compiled two tables using ChatGPT. The first table is per 1 gram of broccoli seeds. The second table is per 1 gram sprouted seeds. Beware of ChatGPT because it commonly makes mistakes!

In table 1 the glucoraphanin and erucic acid content varies significantly among broccoli seed cultivars. Below is an updated table summarizing the available data on glucosinolates and erucic acid levels, as well as the potential health risks associated with erucic acid:

Cultivar Erucic Acid Range (mg/g) Glucoraphanin Content (mg/g) Erucic Acid Risk
Green Duke 25–50 3–8 Moderate to high; excessive intake can harm cardiovascular health and liver【207】【208】.
Marathon 30–48 2–6 Potentially harmful with prolonged high doses, especially in children and pregnant women【207】【208】.
Emperor 28–52 4–10 High erucic acid poses risks, but occasional intake is generally considered safe【207】【208】.
BSR and NT Radish* 16–19 N/A Lowest erucic acid levels; minimal risk compared to other cultivars【207】.
Standard Sprouting Broccoli 20–45 5–12 May contribute to sulforaphane production; manage intake for sensitive individuals【207】【208】.

Table 2 is per 1 gram sprouted broccoli seeds

Cultivar Erucic Acid Range (mg/g) (3-Day Sprouts) Glucoraphanin Content (mg/g) (3-Day Sprouts) Erucic Acid Risk
Green Duke 5–12 10–25 Reduced erucic acid; safe for consumption in moderate quantities.
Marathon 4–10 8–22 Significantly lower erucic acid; suitable for human diets.
Emperor 6–14 12–28 Moderate levels; safe for consumption when balanced with other foods.
Low-erucic hybrids <5 15–30 Negligible erucic acid; ideal for dietary or supplement purposes.
Standard Broccoli Sprouts 7–15 18–35 Low erucic acid; excellent source of glucoraphanin for sulforaphane production.
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#42

I eat almost every day Broccoli Sprouts take a week to sprout them. I eat close to 50G daily. I just like the taste. I remember they did some studies with Broccoli Sprouts and I followed the dose. I will try to find it

#43

I agree, the taste of broccoli sprouts when eaten in a salad or steamed as part of a meal can be very nice. But when blended, the taste is not pleasant and a ruins the experience. Blending germinated seeds is much more palatable for me. I saw a podacst with Dr. Jed Fahey, and he mentioned the seeds contain a decent amount of glucoraphanin. I’m pretty sure it was this one.

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#44

That’s the site I visited, they mail from UK, 12 € shipping to Italy unless it’s an order > 120 €. Of course, I may decide to order 4 boxes at 140 € with free shipping.
This makes the domestic product more appealing.

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#45

I wonder why Rhonda Patrick is only taking two caps of Prostaphane = 20 mg sulphoraphanes daily, since the noted studies on benefits from sprouts were based on doses of 40 - 60 mg.

In any case, I suspect pulsed use may be called for, given indications that constant NRF2 activation may be negative.

#46

Do you have sources confirming that NRF2 activation is negative?

Sulforaphane’s half life seems to be 2 to 3 hours. That’s short, so if you just take it in the morning, by the next morning about 10 half-lives passed, so do you really need to pulse it more than that?

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#47

I believe you are correct. I jumped to a conclusion too fast. Indeed, the short half-life of sulforaphanes should mean a pulsatile not constant NRF2 activation. I appreciate your clarification!

Under ordinary circumstances NRF2 has a half life of only ca 20 minutes. However, in cells exposed to NRF2 activating substances I understand that NRF2 has a half-life of about ten times more, ca 200 minutes. This means about seven half lives after 24 hours, with a concentration of less than 1% of the peak. .I am not absolutely sure I feel a small uncertainty, but I believe this is low enough to consider NRF2 levels to have returned to baseline or near baseline level i.e. meeting the definition of not constantly activating NRF2 dependent pathways.

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#49

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268873117_Biochemical_composition_of_broccoli_seeds_and_sprouts_at_different_stages_of_seedling_development

Check out the last page.

Germination time (days) Sulforaphane ug/g
0 3,631.90
3 534.62
5 336.22
8 1,055.13
11 1,483.76
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High-glucoraphanin broccoli organic sprouting seeds
#50

It varies by variety. Great. I don’t even know mine. I got tired of sprouting and just gave up. Now it looks like I can just grind and throw the seeds in a smoothie?

Not completely sure they did that right because the water will weigh quite a bit, making the sulforaphane look smaller in the sprouts.

#51

I thought broccoli sprouts have higher myrosinase activity than seeds, and myrosinase as mentioned is needed for converting glucoraphanin into sulforaphane - but I can’t find any research that supports that notion I believed to have read earlier… Can anyone else?

#52

I used to grind the seeds, then mix it with wasabi and soy sauce. I used it as dip for cold cuts, or some other snack (sardines, carrot sticks). I stopped because of fear of the erucic acid content of the broccoli seeds. I intend. to resume, because further reading shows the erucic acid content of broccoli seeds is tolerable. Will post the reading material after I have retraced my steps. Was searching, and found the material this morning.

True wasabi has myrosinase. Even the commercial product passed off as Japanese wasabi has myrosinase, because it is made from horseradish, and/or mustard seeds.

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#53
  • Broccoli seed weight of one tablespoon 10.7 g.
  • Lipids weight (10.7 g x 12.6% [2013 study]) = 1.35 g.
  • Erucic acid weight in one tablespoon of broccoli seeds (1.35 g x 26.9% [2002 study]) = 0.36 g.

This 0.36 g erucic acid content would be lower than 2017 guidelines for my 70 kg weight (7 mg x 70) = 0.49 g.

According to EFSA, a tolerable daily intake (TDI) for erucic acid was established at 7 mg/kg body weight per day

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#54

Is there an optimal time to take sulforaphane: morning? evening?

And what would be the “good” dose?

According to BROQ:

One serving of BROQ is two capsules, which contain a total of 20mg of sulforaphane.
Many studies have found significant benefits from this amount of sulforaphane.
A number of studies used a daily dosage of 60mg of sulforaphane, the equivalent of six capsules of BROQ.
We recommend taking BROQ with meals, to avoid minor stomach discomfort that might occur otherwise.
If you’re taking more than two capsules daily, split the dosage across meals.
Time of day is not important.

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#55

6 pills a day of this would be wildly expensive

#56

I think it could make you go BROQ. Sorry.

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#57

That MMC graph, 43% LE - obtains at the 50% cohort survivors? Well, the graph is still shifted nicely as you go further into age, still excellent at 25% survivors, but as you approach max LS, suddenly the shift becomes marginal at best.

To me, this looks like a classic “squaring the curve”, not true max lifespan extension. It doesn’t uniformly shift the curve by a set percentage all along, like in some interventions we’ve seen, say CR. This is more the pattern of exercise - lowers your risk of death at any age, but doesn’t extend max.

In essence, it lowers the risk of death and perhaps robustly extends healthspan, which is very good of course. But there are many interventions which have a similar effect, including, as mentioned, exercise.

However, the holy grail is max lifespan extension, and here this doesn’t seem to be that rare ticket. An ITP trial would be nice.

Of course we’re talking worms, but if for the sake of argument, we assume the same for humans, best case scenario, then one can put it in a bucket with many such interventions.

My issue is that many of us already do interventions that square the curve provably in humans (exercise), which is a big deal, considering that this hasn’t been proven in humans. But ok, let’s assume the best.

My thought is that if I already use a proven “curve squaring” intervention, then adding more of them might be problematic insofar as it is redundant at best, and might be polypharmaceutically cancelling at worst.

I guess the idea is if you’ve got one intervention that accomplishes the goal, more might be better. However, everything hangs on how confident we are that a given treatment accomplishes that goal. If I have a parachute that gives me 99.999% odds of survival, I would not want to strap myself with a lot of additional experimental parachutes as additional help, because there’s a huge danger of many parachutes opening at once having the effect of disastrous interference. Better stick to the one that already gives me close to 100% and not worry about strapping on more at great monetary cost and increased risk.

Meanwhile, interventions like rapa, which hint at increasing max LS, are a different category of very rare interventions, and for some of us worth the uncertainty and risk. The size of reward vs risk makes rapa a worthwhile intervention (for those of us who are more risk tolerant), whereas the broccoli extract is not a reward that justifies the risk (for those of us who think we’re already getting that reward from a whole bunch of other interventions, both lifestyle and drugs/supps).

Now, of course if there’s a lot of research showing it’s not only safe, but doesn’t interfere with other interventions that accomplish roughly the same goal, or if it’s shown to have some unique benefits, then that changes the calculus completely. But it seems the research is not quite there at this point in time as yet, though perhaps in the future.

Finally, if the monetary cost is great, then given the uncertainty, some may decide that those funds can be more useful elsewhere. YMMV.

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#58

There is a lot of evidence that eating a lot of broccoli is very safe. You cant really say its dangerous to take a lot of chemicals without human trials and then eat hundreds of different kinds of food and spices in various combinations. Taking 1000x as much as is possible to get from food is somewhat different, but in this case its possible to get these amounts from managable amounts of the kinds of food where its most concentrated.

#59

I think its not different than using other concentrated forms of food/spice like olive oil, cinnamon, tumeric, sugar, butter, gluten, vitamin c, vinegar, etc

#60

Yes, but whole food, is different from an extract of some isolated component, and a concentrated isolated component different yet. I’m not saying it has no benefits, just that studies showing benefits of broccoli consumption can not be used to assume the same of supplements, we need separate studies.

#61

If you avoid because of cost thats logical, but if you avoid because being afraid of harm I dont think its possible to live life consistently even cutting out all of ultra processed food, if you eat anything even somewhat processed.

Theres nothing wrong with eating some grams of broccoli sprouts most days instead of pill though, but eating a few parts of that whole food cant really be expected to cause undue harm or you’d have to avoid eating most things with a seasoning or oil extract that doesnt have a good rct.

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