[Jed]: We're talking about broccoli sprouts and we've been talking a lot about supplements.
When you go to the tropics, which is where most of the developing world is, there are
plants, and I think I mentioned moringa earlier.
Moringa, it happens to be a tropical tree that grows everywhere.
It's a weed, and it's also full of an isothiocyanate that is, in many cases, more active than...it
may be better than sulforaphane in many situations.
Better or worse, but it's sort of on the same level of efficacy of sulforaphane.
I'm mentioning that because we've studied it here and I've been involved with actually
trying to promote moringa for nutritional reasons.
And I've been very fascinated by the potential pharmaceutical or pharmacologic potential
of moringa.
But it's but one example and there are others that will cite you various other examples
of plants that can grow in developing areas of the world, can grow in the dryland tropics,
or the wet rainforest tropical regions that could, theoretically, really be game changers
not only nutritionally, but in terms of disease prevention in those populations.
And I think we really need to spend, I guess, the preaching part of this, I think we all
need to spend more time, and attention, and money on some of those plants.
And they may actually have benefit for those of us in the West anyway.
I mean, I'm not suggesting that we would want to bring tropical moringa here and try to
get people all over the U.S. to eat it because it's got various pharmacologic value to it
nor am I suggesting...I certainly wouldn't suggest that we try to cover the world, the
equatorial world, with broccoli sprouts because they just won't work.
Broccoli is a temperate climate plant and it's too...you know, sprouts are too fragile
to import to the tropics or export to the tropics, I think.
But the point is that there are plants in various regions of the world that could be
adopted, or engineered, or taken over and we should really explore them a bit more,
I think.
[Rhonda]: So I have a couple of questions.
So the moringa, does it activate some of the same pathways, different pathways that sulforaphane
does?
[Jed]: It does...
[Rhonda]: There's a lot of crosstalk...
It does?
[Jed]: Yeah, yeah.
So the isothiocyanates have this N double-bond, C double-bond S-group.
Again, non-chemists won't care, but that's the active part of the molecule that is responsible
for most of its activity, we think.
The other part of the molecule that's hanging off that is responsible for solubility and
permeability, and contributes to its biological activity.
I think it's not as relevant in terms of the activity of the molecule.
And so all of the isothiocyanates from cruciferous plants and from moringa all have that NCS
group, which is what's responsible for binding to the Keap1 molecule.
There are two sulfhydryl groups on reactive cysteines on that Keap1 molecule, and our
colleague Dinkova-Kostova has shown that.
And the isothiocyanate binds there and causes a change in conformation of that protein.
So if you have a different isothiocyanate that maybe is bulkier, maybe it's less effective
in getting in that position on the molecule, but, yeah.
[Rhonda]: Okay.
And can we cultivate moringa in places in the United States?
[Jed]: We can, and it's being cultivated in southernmost Florida and I think even in Southern
Arizona and Southern California.
It doesn't tolerate frost.
So you have to protect it from frost, but, I mean, it's like oranges and lemons and citrus
fruit in that respect.
So it can be grown in the States.
And there are people...I'm actually on the scientific advisory board of a company that's
producing moringa in Ghana in Africa.
They produce in women's cooperatives and they produce in a responsible way, and they are
very attentive to cleanliness of the product that's coming back and they have something
that they sell in the U.S.
They put it in bars, and they put it in drinks, and they sell the powder plain.
There a number of companies that do that.
[Rhonda]: I've seen it at Whole Foods.
[Jed]: Yeah, yeah.
[Rhonda]: Moringa, yeah.
[Jed]: Yeah, I think in fact...
[Rhonda]: It was in health food stores.
[Jed]: Yeah, yeah.
There are also some really lousy companies that are producing moringa.
There's a multilevel marketing company that's producing it and making outlandish claims.
So as with dietary supplements...
[Rhonda]: Do you have like a list of...do you know which ones are more reliable based
on...
[Jed]: Well, the company that I'm fond of is called Kuli Kuli.
[Rhonda]: Kuli Kuli?
[Jed]: K-U-L-I K-U-L-I, yeah.
And I think that...
[Rhonda]: And they make in the United States or they have...
[Jed]: No, they produce it outside of the United States.
They bring it in.
[Rhonda]: Oh, they are importing, okay.
[Jed]: Yeah, there probably are companies that are producing it in the U.S. I'm sure
there are.
As with nutritional supplements, you have to be very careful of claims that are made
and what's really in it.
So there's a company, I think the biggest company that's been identified with moringa.
I'm blanking on the name of the company, but they made a drink and they're a multilevel
marketing company and they made many, many irresponsible claims.
They invoked the name of Johns Hopkins even in some of their advertising and frankly,
I hope they're not doing well.
So you just, you have to be careful.
[Rhonda]: Okay.
Another question just to get back to some of what you were initially saying about how
this plant, which is growing in some of these tropical regions in more developed nations
and how it can be very powerful in cheap dietary intervention that may make a huge difference
in people's health in those nations.
It just came to my mind knowing what I know about sulforaphane and how sulforaphane is
very powerful, and this has been shown in multiple clinical studies, to immediately
start to detoxify air pollutants that were exposed to, like, benzene, alkaline, but benzene
is a big one.
Like, I mean, you start to excrete benzene by, like, 60% after just 24 hours of taking
broccoli sprout extract.
And I'm thinking about developing countries, there's been a few studies coming out recently
that the air pollution and some of these things are a big problem over there, and it's been
shown to cause very high stroke risk in young people even because these things are inflaming
the blood vessels.
It's not just benzene, it's particulate matter and things like that, as well.
But still, what's very interesting, if moringa would also be activating these phase II detoxification
enzymes, which would be getting rid of some of this compounds and even playing a powerful
role in just reducing inflammation in the body and preventing people from having strokes
at such young age.
So you're right.
I think it is very important.
You know, people here in the U.S., there's a very large population of people that are
interested in aging well and not degenerating and I'm part of that group.
[Jed]: We all are.
[Rhonda]: But there is also people that have serious risks that are living in countries
where they don't have the luxury of going to a health food store and eating kale smoothies
and things like that.
[Jed]: Exactly, exactly.
[Rhonda]: So that's really cool that you're involved in that research and advocating for
that, as well.
[Jed]: Well, I think, I actually got involved with a not-for-profit back in the early 2000s
that was advocating the use of moringa from a nutritional perspective and I've sort of
stayed in touch with that group ever since.
And there was a lot of effort to try to get some clinical trials based on its nutritional
benefits.
It's very high, the leaves are very high in protein, way higher than kale, or broccoli,
or most other leafy green vegetables.
[Rhonda]: Yeah, that's interesting.
[Jed]: Yeah.
And it's also the leaves stay on the trees longer than just about anything else in cases
of drought.
But there was not the uptake to do a clinical trial, and now there is so much sort of dogmatic
promotion of moringa for its nutritional value in those areas of the world that it's so widely
used now that I think it's going to be difficult to get some of the rigorous Western-style
clinical trials done that we might desire because everybody is just assuming that it's
nutritionally, it's a panacea.
[Rhonda]: And where is it being used mostly?
[Jed]: Really, all over the tropics, certainly in the Philippines, in large swaths of West
Africa and South Africa and in India.
I mean, its origin was in northern India near the Pakistan border and it spread around the
world since.
It spread a long time ago, but it spread around the world from those points of origin all
over.
[Rhonda]: Do people just eat the leaf?
Like, how are they preparing?
What are they doing?
Do they make moringa smoothies?
[Jed]: Well, some people do.
It's interesting, but moringa, because it's sort of a ratty-looking tree, I mean, it's
a 20, 30, 40-foot tall tree, but it's sought of ratty-looking and it's sort of hardscrabble.
Yeah, it's not gorgeous and the leaves...
It was called the horseradish tree or the drumstick tree.
Drumstick tree because it has long seed pods that look like drumsticks.
Horseradish because it's stringent.
[Rhonda]: Does it taste like horseradish?
[Jed]: Yeah, it's harsh.
It's sort of like eating Japanese radish, daikon.
So, because...and I can give you some to try if you'd like later.
[Rhonda]: I would, actually.
Love to try it.
[Jed]: Okay, yeah.
Because of that harsh taste...
Actually, I have some on my shelf right over there.
Because of that harsh taste and because of the way it sort of grows like a weed, it's
regarded in a lot of areas as a famine food.
And it has also been sort of a last resort in cases where people are starving.
And from what I understand from my social and behavioral science colleagues, many times,
plants like that sort of get a stigma attached to them.
So people with little excess money, people who are doing okay may reject what are thought
of as famine foods as sort of low class when they don't need them.
So getting people to voluntarily adopt a food like that may be difficult and has proven
to be difficult in some areas, and apparently that's one of the reasons.
However, it's quite widely eaten, the dried powdered leaves are very easy to store so
they maintain their high protein content for a long period of time.
That is not the case with things like spinach and kale and some other green leafy vegetables.
I mean, imagine drying iceberg lettuce leaves and powdering them and then having them later,
yuck.
So in the tropics, dried powdered moringa leaves are found in a lot of areas and are
used in food.
It's funny, the "Hopkins Magazine" just did a little profile on our involvement with moringa
and they quoted me as talking about the first time I had cooked moringa in Africa, which
was in Ghana at an international moringa meeting and it was moringa leaves...
So I'd had them powdered and I'd had the supplements made from them back in the U.S.
But this was in 2006, I think.
There was a stew and it looked sort of like saag, like Indian saag, like spinach stew,
had some chunks in it.
And I was offered some at this meeting on the shores of the Atlantic, a beautiful scenery
under sort of tiki huts.
And I ate it and then I asked my hosts what the chunks were and it was rat.
So I was a little grossed out by my first sampling of moringa made as it's eaten locally,
but I actually...
[Rhonda]: Tastes like chicken?
[Jed]: Tastes like chicken?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
[Rhonda]: Wow, I don't know if I could stomach that, especially after experimenting on rats.
So these leaves are high probably in also other micronutrients, folate, magnesium.
[Jed]: They are.
They are.
[Rhonda]: You know, but what's the glucosinolate that is stored in the moringa, what is it
called?
[Jed]: It's called glucomoringin.
[Rhonda]: Glucomoringin?
That's a name I'll have to remember.
[Jed]: Yes, the lengthy scientific term is 4-L-alpha-rhamnosyloxypyranosyl-benzyl glucosinolate,
so there.
[Rhonda]: Wow.
I'll go with Glucomoringin.
[Jed]: So, you probably prefer the shortcut, yeah.
[Rhonda]: And what's the active...
Oh, that's the isothiocyanate?
[Jed]: That is the glucosinolate and it's hydrolyzed by myrosinase that's present in
moringa leaves to moringin, or for 4-L-alpha-glucopyranosyloxy benzyl isothiocyanate.
So it's got a big, honking sugar group, a rhamnose sugar group, and a benzyl group attached
to this NCS.
[Rhonda]: Okay.
[Jed]: So it's actually, structurally, it's very different because it's got a lot of excess
chemical baggage.
So in terms of steric hindrance getting to a protein, getting to a molecular site, it's
quite different.
But as I said before, it's actually more active in some assays and less in others.