Scientists Gain Autism Insight By Studying Broccoli - Forbes

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10/13/2014 @ 3:00PM

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Scientists Gain Autism Insight

By Studying Broccoli
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The results of a new autism study were so surprising even one of the authors
called it far- fetched, at least on the surface. If you tell someone youre
treating autism with broccoli, they would think you are off your rocker, said
Paul Talalay, who is head of the Laboratory for Molecular Pharmacology at
Johns Hopkins University.
He and his collaborators announced today that when they gave a compound
called sulforaphane, derived from broccoli, to a small group of severely to
moderately autistic teenage boys and young men, there was a dramatic
improvement in the subjects symptoms. They were calmer, more social and
in some cases, more verbal.
This experiment was no long shot, however. It grew out of a long history
involving the intersection of two well-developed courses of research.
Coming at it from one side was Talalay, who had been following his curiosity
about cancer prevention and vegetables. From another angle came pediatric
neurologist Andrew Zimmerman, who had been fascinated by anecdotal
reports from parents that their autistic children improved during bouts of
fever.

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English: Broccoli Deutsch: Broccoli (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The study was small, involving just 29 patients who got the compound and 15
on a placebo. The results were rejected by the New England Journal of
Medicine, but accepted into the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Science. (Addendum: Talalay is a member of the National Academy of
Sciences, and academy members can submit papers to this journal without
standard peer review. Such papers are reviewed but the authors can choose
their own reviewers.)
That suits the researchers fine, since they say the findings must be replicated
before they would be of clinical use, and yet the paper reveals new insights
into the physiological underpinnings of autism or autism spectrum disorder
which affects about one in 68 people. The result implies these symptoms
can be changed, said Zimmerman. They are not set in stone.
Talalay explained that his part of this line of inquiry started in the 1980s,
when he was investigating cancer prevention then a rather radical and
unexplored topic. (Talalay is now in his mid-80s and has spent 51 years
doing research at Johns Hopkins.)
Experimental work at the time was showing that certain food preservatives
known as BHA and BHT appeared to prevent cancer in animals. I asked the
question, how does it work? The answer to that question, he said, is at the
heart of this entire field of work.
The answer, he found, was that cells have evolved an intrinsic mechanism to
protect themselves from inevitable damage carcinogenic chemicals,
radiation, and damage that comes from the way animal cells use oxygen. We
need oxygen for respiration but the process leaves byproducts called oxygen

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radicals, or free radicals, which damage our cells DNA. Talalay found that
BHT and BHA amplified the production of enzymes that protect cells from
this kind of degradation.
That led him to a very basic question why are vegetables good for us? Could
it be they contain substances that rev up those natural mechanism for
protecting cells? To find out, he sent his graduate students to the grocery
store.
They brought back a variety of vegetables, but those with the most dramatic
effects were the so-called cruciferous vegetables, including broccoli,
cauliflower and cabbage. From broccoli he and his students extracted a single
compound called sulforaphane with a strong protective effect. His work on
the substance led to a front page New York Times story in 1992. It also led to
a whole body of research on sulforaphane, he said, with three or four papers
published every week exploring its mechanism of action.
At the same time and unbeknownst to Talalay, pediatric neurologist Andrew
Zimmermen of Massachusetts General Hospital was investigating anecdotal
reports that fever temporarily makes some autistic people more relaxed, more
communicative and in some cases better able to express their thoughts in
words.
That line of inquiry led him to link the phenomenon to a physical mechanism
fever induces cells to produce substances called heat shock proteins, which
can protect cells. He said a body of scientific work also showed that some
autistic people have abnormalities in their cells they show increased
damage from oxygen radicals, high levels of inflammation and other signs
that the normal protective mechanisms are not working.
About five years ago, Zimmerman came to Talalay and Johns Hopkins
colleague Kirby Smith and they started looking at the cell biology of autism
and substances that might have a positive effect. That was a wonderful
collaboration, said Zimmerman. At the time, it wasnt clear whether the heat
shock proteins would have any relevance, or whether the cellular
abnormalities were a cause or a symptom of autism.
Zimmerman said hed never heard of sulforaphane, the broccoli compound,
but the collaborators found it seemed to reverse the cellular abnormalities
associated with autism. That was a new realization for us, said Talalay. It
led them to recruit people for a small human study. They used young males,
aged 13 to 27 with moderate to severe autism. 29 got a standardized dose of
the sulforaphane more than you could get from eating broccoli. 15 got a
placebo.
The results were striking. I was bowled over by it, said Talalay. The

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improvements were almost too good to be true a nagging sign that there
might have been a mistake. He said they decided to have the results audited
by an independent firm. But what they really need is independent
confirmation.
Though theres no harm in encouraging people eating broccoli, Talalay warns
that when they tested the vegetable from various supermarkets, the levels of
sulforaphane vary by a factor of 20. But in the meantime theres a lot more to
the study and its history, he said. The insight it provides into what autism is
all about may more important.
Also on Forbes:
The 10 Best Foods You Can Eat
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