Broccoli : a powerful weapon !

Ioannis Chalidis

M.Sc. Univ. of Sheffield, UK

Broccoli is powerful end essential

weapon of our dietary, as it largely
contributes to the maintenance of health of
cardiovascular system (this alone is enough
to elevate it to the status of a super-food).
Broccoli contains large amounts of vitamin
K that helps the uneventful function of the
liver and blood clot formation. In case of
vitamin K deficiency, the blood takes longer
to clot and, therefore, the amount of blood
loss may be substantially increased.
However, delay in blood clot formation
could be beneficial in prevention of stroke
and heart disease. In this occasion, anticoagulation therapy may be applied.
Warfarin, is an oral medication used to
prevent blood forming abnormal clots. It acts
towards vitamin K and preservation of the
balance between the two substances is
necessary to avoid catastrophic clotting (too
little warfarin) or life-threating major
bleeding (too much warfarin). The amount
of K in the diet may affect the intensity and
duration of the described medication. Study
of P. Wells et al., in 1994 about food and
drug interactions contained of 793 retrieved
citations, 120 contained original report on
186 (kappa statistic was 0.67, representing
substantial agreement), found that warfarins
anticoagulant effect was inhibited by foods
rich in vitamin Ki.
The effective dosage of broccoli has not
been clearly determined. Experts
recommend that patients who are receiving
wafarin therapy limit their daily variations in
vitamin K consumption to no more than 250
to 500mgr from baseline intakesii (6580mgr/day). If a patient takes a simple meal
of broccoli (~500mg K) the thrombotest
values rise significantly but they are still
remained in normal rangesiii. There is no
evidence that consuming les broccoli is more
beneficial in maintaining anticoagulation
control than consuming more. Furthermore,
was no significant difference between men
and women has been identifiediv.
Particularly, irregular consumption of green
vegetables in normal amounts (cooking not
more than 10 minutes does not remove

significant amounts of K) will only

contribute marginally to fluctuations of the
time of blood clot formation. Therefore,
patients should simply be instructed to avoid
binge eating of broccoli, avoid any sudden
changes regarding the consumption of foods
containing K.
In the majority of published studies
factors that can be potentially influence the
vitamin K content of broccoliv such as
geographic location, climate, soil condition
or stage of maturation have not been taken
into consideration. Seasonal variation has
been reported to affect the quantity of
Vitamin K content in vegetables as summer
months seem to yield more K than winter
months. However, in case of increase of the
incremental dose of K, this was made
sequentially without a washout period.
Additionally, these studies contained small
sample sizesvi and performed in young
healthy volunteers and not in patients with
various medical comorbidities or advanced
age. So, no general conclusions can be safely
and accurately extracted.
i

P. S. Well, A. M. Holbrook, N. R. Crowther,

J. Hirsh: Interactions of Warfarin with Drugs
and Food. Annals of Internal Medicine 9:676683, 1994.
ii
Pedersen F.M., Hamberg O,Hess K, Ovesen
L: The effect of dietary vitamin K on warfarininduced anticoagulation. J. Int. Med. 229: 517520,1991.
iii
Karlson B., Leijb B., Hellstrom K. On the
influence of vitamin K-rich vegetables and
wine on the effectiveness of warfarin
treatment. Acta Med. Scand. 1986;220:347350.
iv
Sarah L. Booth, Maureen E. OBrien-Morse,
Gerard E. Dallal, Kenneth W. Davidson, and
Caren M. Gundberg. Response of vitamin K
status to different intakes and sources of
phylloquinone-rich foods: comparison of
younger and older adults. American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition 1999;70:368-77.
v
Ferland, G., Sadowski, J., 1992. Vitamin K1
(Phylloquinone) content of green vegetables:
Effects of plant maturation and geographical
growth location. Journal of Agricultural and
Food Chemistry 40, 1874-1877.
vi
W.H. Chow, T.C. Chow, T.M. Tse, Y.T.
Tai and W.T. Lee., Anticoagulation instability
with life-threatening complication after dietary
modification. Postgrad. Med. J. (1990) 66,
855-857.