Aug 28, 2013 01:04 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

Eating broccoli may slow the effects and altogether help prevent osteoarthritis, U.K. researchers said in a recent study.

According to BBC News, researchers at the University of East Anglia are beginning on human trials after experiencing success from a lab study.

Test on mice and cells showed that a broccoli compound, which can also be found in Brussels sprouts and cabbage, stopped an enzyme that can be destructive toward cartilage.

The researchers have given 20 participants special broccoli packed with extra nutrients, a cross between the vegetable and a wild relative from Sicily. The human body takes the compound glucoraphanin and turns it into sulforaphane, which seems to be beneficial to joints.

"We're asking patients to eat 100g (3.5oz) every day for two weeks," Dr. Rose Davidson said. "That's a normal, good-sized serving - about a handful - and it's an amount that most people should be happy to eat every day."

The patients, who already have arthritis, will eat the enhanced broccoli for two weeks before having their severely arthritic knees surgically repaired. Although the team of researchers are not expecting the broccoli to reverse or repair the arthritis, they will look at tissue removed to see what affect it did have.

"I can't imagine it would repair or reverse arthritis... but it might be a way to prevent it," Davidson said.

Another group of 20 patients, not on the broccoli diet, will have their knees repaired as a comparative group for the study.

"Until now research has failed to show that food or diet can play any part in reducing the progression of osteoarthritis, so if these findings can be replicated in humans, it would be quite a breakthrough, said Professor Alan Silman, of Arthritis Research U.K., the company funding Davidson's research. "We know that exercise and keeping to a healthy weight can improve people's symptoms and reduce the chances of the disease progressing, but this adds another layer in our understanding of how diet could play its part."

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