--- title: Broccoli Drink Detoxes Air Pollution in China description: Scientists have developed a drink that can clear people in China of pollutants canonical: https://time.com/2891178/broccoli-sprout-beverage-can-detoxify-pollutants/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-06-17T21:12:17.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:08:15.364Z article:section: Health og:title: Broccoli Drink Detoxes Air Pollution in China og:description: Scientists have developed a drink that can clear people in China of pollutants og:url: https://time.com/2891178/broccoli-sprout-beverage-can-detoxify-pollutants/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt106bd8b83ed2c567/69869800e53aba80a74d3369/84782489-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5700 og:image:height: 3206 og:image:alt: 84782489 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Broccoli Drink Detoxes Air Pollution in China twitter:description: Scientists have developed a drink that can clear people in China of pollutants twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt106bd8b83ed2c567/69869800e53aba80a74d3369/84782489-copy.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Broccoli-Sprout Beverage Can Detoxify Pollutants > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jun 17, 2014 9:12 PM UTC  Broccoli Broccoli Image Source—Getty Images/Image Source by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jun 17, 2014 9:12 PM UTC China has a serious pollution problem and it’s harming the health of people who live there—even those living outside of the biggest cities. But scientists from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health think they’ve found a very simple and cost-effective solution. Or at least something that could curb risk. Their answer is a broccoli-sprout beverage. It sounds so simple, and it really is. The results appear promising, too. It’s pretty well established that cruciferous vegetables like broccoli have cancer-preventative compounds. Broccoli sprouts specifically are a source of glucoraphanin, which creates sulforaphane when chewed or swallowed. That compound accelerates the body’s ability to detoxify from various pollutants. The researchers had about 300 Chinese men and women living a rural community in Jiangsu Province, China, drink a beverage of sterilized water, pineapple, lime juice and dissolved freeze-dried broccoli sprout powder. The control group drank a mixture without the sprout mixture. All the participants had their urine and blood tested, and when they did, the scientists discovered that among the participants drinking the broccoli beverage, the rate of excretion of the carcinogen benzene increased 61% and the rate of excretion of the irritant acrolein rapidly increased 23%. “The situation is that people throughout China are breathing dirty air, and the exposure is largely unavoidable,” says study author Tom Kensler. “We wanted to boost the defense mechanism that accelerates the rate that these are cleared form the body so there is less opportunity for harm to be evoked by chemicals.”  Photo courtesy of Tom Kensler When asked if people living in other large cities like New York or Los Angeles could benefit from drinking the same mixture, Kensler says he thinks their approach could be extended across all people. Here’s another excuse to scoop an extra helping of broccoli on your plate. 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