Approximately 30% of the 700,000 US veterans of the 1990-1991 Persian Gulf War developed multiple persistent symptoms called Gulf War illness. While the etiology is uncertain, several toxic exposures including pesticides and chemical warfare agents have shown associations. There is no effective medical treatment. An intervention to enhance detoxification developed by Hubbard has improved quality of life and/or reduced body burdens in other cohorts. We evaluated its feasibility and efficacy in ill Gulf War (GW) veterans in a randomized, waitlist-controlled, pilot study at a community-based rehabilitation facility in the United States. Eligible participants (= 32) were randomly assigned to the intervention (= 22) or a four-week waitlist control (= 10). The daily 4-6 week intervention consisted of exercise, sauna-induced sweating, crystalline nicotinic acid and other supplements. Primary outcomes included recruitment, retention and safety; and efficacy was measured via Veteran's Short Form-36 (SF-36) quality of life, McGill pain, multidimensional fatigue inventory questionnaires and neuropsychological batteries. Scoring of outcomes was blinded. All 32 completed the trial and 21 completed 3-month follow-up. Mean SF-36 physical component summary score after the intervention was 6.9 (95% CI; -0.3, 14.2) points higher compared to waitlist control and 11 of 16 quality of life, pain and fatigue measures improved, with no serious adverse events. Most improvements were retained after 3 months. The Hubbard regimen was feasible, safe and might offer relief for symptoms of GW illness.

Broccoli sprouts are a convenient and rich source of the glucosinolate, glucoraphanin, which can generate the chemopreventive agent, sulforaphane, an inducer of glutathione S-transferases (GSTs) and other cytoprotective enzymes. A broccoli sprout-derived beverage providing daily doses of 600µmol glucoraphanin and 40 µmol sulforaphane was evaluated for magnitude and duration of pharmacodynamic action in a 12-week randomized clinical trial. Two hundred and ninety-one study participants were recruited from the rural He-He Township, Qidong, in the Yangtze River delta region of China, anarea characterized by exposures to substantial levels of airborne pollutants. Exposure to air pollution has been associated with lung cancer and cardiopulmonary diseases. Urinary excretion of the mercapturic acids of the pollutants, benzene, acrolein, and crotonaldehyde, were measured before and during the intervention using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Rapid and sustained, statistically significant (p ≤ 0.01) increases in the levels of excretion of the glutathione-derived conjugates of benzene (61%), acrolein (23%), but not crotonaldehyde were found in those receiving broccoli sprout beverage compared with placebo. Excretion of the benzene-derived mercapturic acid was higher in participants who were GSTT1-positive compared to the null genotype, irrespective of study arm assignment. Measures of sulforaphane metabolites in urine indicated that bioavailability did notdecline over the 12-week daily dosing period. Thus, intervention with broccoli sprouts enhances the detoxication of some airborne pollutants and may provide a frugal means to attenuate their associated long-term health risks.