Developing a broccoli sprout extract as an adjuvant therapy for pre-eclampsia.

Introduction: The drug treatment for pre-eclampsia-antihy-pertensives-has not changed for 50 years. Targeting the maternal endothelial dysfunction that underlies the clinical disease should ofer improvements in clinical outcomes. Sulforaphane is a potent, naturally occurring antioxidant found in broccoli sprout extract (BSE) that is highly efective at normalising endothelial dysfunction in vitro. To be biologically active, sulforaphane needs to be activated by the enzyme myrosinase. We set out to establish the in vivo pharmacokinetics of an activated and non-activated broccoli sprout formulation in healthy non-pregnant women. Method(s): We performed an open-label, single-arm crossover trial of both BSE preparations. There was a two-week washout period between administration of each preparation. Six healthy women fasted from midnight before ingesting four capsules of myrosinase activated (wave one) or non-activated (wave two) BSE. We collected serum prior to ingestion and at fve time points over eight hours. We quantifed levels of fve sulforaphane metabolites at each time point using liquid chromatography-mass spectrom-etry (LC-MS). We compared the mean area under the curve for each metabolite in activated and non-activated groups. Result(s): The myrosinase activated preparation gave higher levels of sulforaphane-cysteine (444.3 vs. 217.9, p = 0.008), sulforaphane-cysteine-glycine (1555 vs. 870.5, p = 0.03), sulforaphane-glutathione (845.7 vs. 443.9, p = 0.04) and sulforaphane-N-acetyl-cysteine (315.5 VS. 195.5 p = 0.05). There was no diference in non-glycosylated sulforaphane (478 vs 365, p = 0.1). Discussion(s): A myrosinase activated formula of sulforaphane provides signifcantly higher serum levels of key sulforaphane metabolites than a non-activated formula. A pharmacokinetic study of activated sulforaphane in pre-eclamptic women is now worthwhile.