LONDON -- Super-broccoli loaded with natural compounds to help prevent cancer could be on dinner tables within a few years, British researchers said on Wednesday.
Plant biologists at the John Innes Center, a government-funded plant research center, produced the super-broccoli by cross breeding the normal plant with a wild Sicilian species in the same family.
The new plant, which is not genetically modified, contains up to 100 times more sulphoraphane, a compound that helps to lower the risk of cancer, than normal broccoli.
"It's much more potent than normal broccoli," professor Richard Mithen, the head of the research team that produced the plant, told Reuters.
"Our best lines have 100 times more sulphoraphane than a normal broccoli," he added.
The activity of the compounds is well known and has for years been the focus of research, particularly in the United States. But Mithen said the super-broccoli is one of the first plants in which scientists have intensified their effects.
"No gene has been inserted through genetic modification. This is classical breeding. But we speeded that breeding program up by using DNA fingerprinting technology."
Normally the breeding program would have taken about 10-15 years but thanks to DNA technology Mithen has done it in four. The institute owns the patent on the breeding method.
The super-broccoli looks and tastes like normal broccoli but it is packed with sulphoraphane, which induces natural protective enzymes to rid the body of carcinogens before they can do harm.
"It switches on the defenses of our body. We have these natural defenses but in some people they work better than in others. If we eat broccoli it switches them on and makes them more effective," Mithen added.
Breeding work on the super-broccoli is nearly finished and the researchers hope to begin testing it on humans next year. It could be available within a few of years.
Mithen said plant biologists had come full circle with the breeding of super-broccoli because in medieval times broccoli and cabbage were grown as medicinal plants.
