Diet and individuality in detoxification

Purpose: There can be wide variation in individual responses to dietary components and also in detoxification of drugs and environmental compounds. This article seeks to explore some of the factors underlying these findings.Design: Glutathione‐S‐transferases (GST isoforms) link reactive chemical species with glutathione; they are polymorphic in human populations and are cytosolic and found in most tissues of the body. Their activity is modulated by dietary components, as is the activity of the cytosolic sulfotransferase (SULT) isoforms which catalyse sulfation of drugs and endogenous compounds such as steroids. Fruit and vegetable cytosols were incubated with cytosols from rat and human tissues and the activities of GST and SULT enzymes were measured.Materials and methods: Fresh fruits and vegetables were homogenised in distilled water to give 10% solutions. These were then added to supernatants from human and rat tissues, prepared by homogenising the tissue in ice‐cold phosphate buffer and centrifuging. ...