Not so long ago, it was commonly accepted that stomach ulcers were the result of a Type A personality. No more. We now know that these ulcers are usually caused by a bacterial infection. And now we are finding that eating sprouts is just as good as antibiotics to heal those bacteria-produced ulcers.

But it's true, and there is plenty of research evidence to support it. More intriguing, those tests indicate that broccoli sprouts are also powerful protection against stomach cancer, the second most common form of cancer worldwide. Who would have thought our doctors would be prescribing broccoli? In Asia, the stomach ulcers and stomach cancer occur in epidemic proportions. This is an area where there is not as much medical care as in some parts of the world, so a medicine that can be grown at home is promising.

A ten-year series of studies on the cancer-fighting possibilities of broccoli has been going on at Johns Hopkins University conducted by Dr. Paul Talalay and his colleagues. They discovered that sulforaphane can trigger the production of phase II enzymes, which can detoxify cancer-causing chemicals. These may be the most potent anti-cancer compounds known. And guess what–they come from the lowly broccoli! Nothing exotic–just plain old broccoli.

It wasn't news that people who eat more vegetables get less cancer; the scientists just didn't know why. These studies on broccoli sprouts were among the first to ferret out a particular chemical that might be responsible for it.

Some of these studies that have been going on for the past ten years found that sulforaphane could prevent breast and colon cancer. Talalay's team kept studying and found that the key compound in broccoli that accounts for its protective power is glucoraphanim. The body takes that substance and turns it into sulforaphane. They also discovered that it is at least 20 times more concentrated in three-day-old broccoli sprouts than in mature broccoli.

This is good news for those who, like President George H. W. Bush, refuse to eat broccoli. The sprouts taste nothing like the broccoli we’re used to. They’re peppery and crunchy and add a nice touch to a salad.

Dr. Talalay and one of his co-workers, Jed W. Fahey, put together a company to make sprouts for grocery stores. By the time they began testing the effects of sulforaphane on the bacterium Helicobacter pylori, the one that causes stomach ulcers, they were already in production, so they had to work within the confines of Johns Hopkins’ conflict-of-interest rules. Nevertheless, they forged ahead and established a connection between broccoli sprouts and the control of the stomach-cancer bacterium. Actually, it was an accidental discovery. Two workers in the broccoli sprout facility who had ulcers had apparently been cured after they had made a habit of snacking on the sprouts.

The researchers at Johns Hopkins pursued it with those from the National Scientific Research Center in Nancy, France, and found that sulforaphane does, in fact, kill the bacteria that causes stomach ulcers, H. pylori. This was an astounding discovery, because this bacterium had been extremely difficult to get rid of even by combining two or three antibiotics.

They went further and began to test its power to prevent stomach cancer. The studies done on rats showed that mice treated with sulforaphane had 39 percent fewer tumors. It doesn't mean that broccoli can cure ulcers or prevent stomach cancer in people, but it is certainly promising.

So how much broccoli is enough? Fahey says that it can be achieved by eating a serving or so of broccoli sprouts, based on the chemistry they know. You wouldn't need 400 times the amount a human could handle.

The group is preparing to start a clinical trial in Japan to test the sprouts’ effectiveness in people with stomach ulcers, about 80% of the population. Gastric cancer is the prime cancer killer in women in Japan; it's second only to lung cancer in men.

Sprouts are truly amazing and scientists are just beginning to discover all of their virtues. People can not only grow sprouts just about anywhere but this can also be done on any budget.

By TTS Cofounder Botanical Chef Omid Jaffari