Houghton, C.A. The Rationale for Sulforaphane Favourably Influencing Gut Homeostasis and Gut–Organ Dysfunction: A Clinician’s Hypothesis. Int. J. Mol. Sci.2023, 24, 13448.
Houghton, C.A. The Rationale for Sulforaphane Favourably Influencing Gut Homeostasis and Gut–Organ Dysfunction: A Clinician’s Hypothesis. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24, 13448.
Houghton, C.A. The Rationale for Sulforaphane Favourably Influencing Gut Homeostasis and Gut–Organ Dysfunction: A Clinician’s Hypothesis. Int. J. Mol. Sci.2023, 24, 13448.
Houghton, C.A. The Rationale for Sulforaphane Favourably Influencing Gut Homeostasis and Gut–Organ Dysfunction: A Clinician’s Hypothesis. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2023, 24, 13448.
Abstract
Given the accelerating scientific, clinical and consumer interest in highly-prevalent functional gastrointestinal disorders, appropriate therapeutic strategies are needed to address the many aspects of digestive dysfunction. Accumulating evidence for the crucifer-derived bioactive molecule, sulforaphane in upstream cellular defence mechanisms highlights its potential as a therapeutic candidate in targeting functional gastrointestinal conditions together with systemic disorders. This article catalogues the evolution of and rationale for a hypothesis that utilises multifunctional sulforaphane as the initial step in restoring the ecology of the gut ecosystem; it does this primarily by targeting the functions of intestinal epithelial cells. A growing body of work has identified the colonocyte as the driver of dysbiosis, so that targeting gut epithelial function could provide an alternative to targeting the microbes themselves for remediation of microbial dysbiosis. The hypothesis discussed herein has evolved over several years and is supported by case studies showing the application of sulforaphane in gastrointestinal disorders, related food intolerance and several systemic conditions. To our knowledge, this is the first time the effects of sulforaphane have been reported in a clinical environment where several of its key properties within the gut ecosystem appear to be related to its nutrigenomic effects on gene expression.
Keywords
sulforaphane; gut-organ axis; gut ecology; microbiome; chronic disease; nutrigenomics; nutritional medicine; food intolerance; epithelium, dysbiosis; gut barrier
Subject
Medicine and Pharmacology, Dietetics and Nutrition
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
