Air date: December 4, 2011

Host: Jeremy Shere, PhD

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Did you Know? is presented by Wishard Health Services, becoming Eskenazi Health in 2014.

Like most vegetables, broccoli is pretty nutritious. But did you know that a new variety of so-called super broccoli may help cut your risk for heart disease?

The broccoli you typically buy at the grocery store contains glucoraphanin -- a nutrient thought to reduce the type of cholesterol that can lead to heart disease.

Over the past 14 years, British scientists have been hard at work creating a new strain of broccoli with up to three time the normal amount of glucoraphanin. They did the trick by cross-breeding regular broccoli with a wild Sicilian variety that contains lots of the chemical. Now, the resulting super-charged broccoli is available in select stories and will soon be on supermarket shelves across the United States.

Super broccoli is only one example of a recent bevy of nutrient-enhanced foods. You may be familiar with calcium-enriched orange juice and milk with added omega-three fatty acids.

Nutritionists caution that although these foods may provide some added benefit, they’re no substitute for eating a balanced diet and getting plenty of exercise.

And now you know.

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Did you Know is presented by Wishard Health Services, becoming Eskenazi Health in 2014.

Additional Resources:

• More about super broccoli from USA Today.