This is a continuation of the discussion started by wriga, at:
healthunlocked.com/parkinso...
That discussion contains over 100 comments, so it seems to be in order to start a new page.
Here we consider the variability of the yield of broccoli seed and moringa leaf of the active isothiocyanate therapeutic substances. This would be moringin in the case of moringa and sulfurophane in the case of broccoli. Each of these sources contains a precursor that is converted to these active ingredients by a self-contained enzyme. The precursors are glucoraphinin in the case of broccoli and glucomornigin in the case of moringa. The yield is limited by the quantity of the precursor. This is what has been measured by the studies below:
Variability
Both broccoli and moringa exhibited extremely severe variation in the concentration of the precursor.
The study of moringa located here:
nature.com/articles/s41598-...
compared 38 different wild and domestic moringa plants from all over the world. They found a variation of glucomornigin concentration by a factor of over 200.
The table posted at top comes from a study of broccoli seed found here:
journals.ashs.org/hortsci/v...
which compared only a few different versions of broccoli, so it was a more limited sample. They found the concentration of glucoraphinin in broccoli seed varied by a factor of 30. For the same variety grown under the same nominal conditions, the concentration of the precursor glucoraphinin from different years varied by as much as a factor of four.
These studies are not directly comparable so we cannot say whether the variability of broccoli is better or worse than moringa. What we can say is that amounts of raw material of either cannot be used as reliable measures of the active substance. Such a measure could not serve as a basis for a systematic study.
A Quantitative Method
Given the variability of sulfurophane yield, even a rough quantitative method of evaluating one's results is better than none. Fortunately a simple one is possible for making rough relative comparisons between one batch and another.
Sulfurophane feels in the mouth, and at the back of the throat, the way the molecule looks – spiky and irritating. How much one can dilute a sulfurophane preparation and still retain the spiky irritating quality? I took 50 mL of plain water and added my sulfurophane preparation by stages. 2 mL was not enough to immediately cause the spiky feel. 4 mL was - this amounted to 4% versus 8% concentration of sulfurophane preparation for no spiky effect versus immediate spiky effect, respectively.
Note the use of the term "immediate" in the foregoing. I noticed that even a 1% concentration of the sulfurophane preparation will cause a bit of spiky sensation in the mouth after a while.
Also, to maintain apples to apples comparisons we would need to start with agreed-upon amounts of ground broccoli seed and water. To create the sulfurophane preparation in this example I used 10 g of ground broccoli seed and 100 mL of water to start, before heating and filtration. Note that this would be an overdose if taken all once - I am consuming about 1/6th of this daily.
