The cold season will soon begin and some people are now eating more fruit to strengthen their immune system. But the role that diet plays in the immune system is about much more than runny noses.
Do you like broccoli? Eating a lot of it might be worth it. This is shown by an experiment carried out by Anika Wagner, nutritionist at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen. She found that the isothiocyanate sulforaphane, a phytochemical contained as a precursor in broccoli, has a health-promoting effect on mice. “We administered the isothiocyanate to mice and then triggered intestinal inflammation in these animals and in a control group that had not received the substance,” reports the expert. The result: The inflammation was more severe in the control group than in the animals that had received the substance from broccoli. “Because the mouse immune system is similar to that of humans, one
