...and it’s good for diabetes

BROCCOLI could be key to treating type 2 diabetes because a compound it contains helps to lower blood sugar levels, research has found.

Diabetes affects 3.9million people and costs the NHS around 10 per cent of its total budget.

The drug most commonly used to treat it, metformin, cannot be taken by around 15 per cent of sufferers because of its effect on their kidneys. But a study by the Lund University Diabetes Centre in Sweden found that a compound in broccoli called sulforaphane, which is already known to have anti-cancer properties, had a ‘significant’ benefit for obese patients whose type 2 diabetes was poorly regulated.

It could be taken by eating the vegetable or drinking it in the form of juice, the journal Science Translational Medicine reports.