A new study notes that garden-variety broccoli contains an ingredient that can assist type 2 diabetics’ control their blood sugar level. So, say goodbye to the excuses, avoiding broccoli is a bad idea.

Scientists employed computational and experimental research to clue in on a network of 50 genes that cause symptoms associated with type 2 diabetes. During their research, they located a compound called sulforaphane — which is found naturally in cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli , Brussels sprouts and cabbages — that could limit the impact of those genes, the findings published in the journal Science Translational Medicine concluded.

Scientists provided sulforaphane to obese subjects, in the form of a concentrated broccoli sprout extract during the study. Researchers noted that it improved the subjects’ ability to control their glucose levels and as well as lowering their glucose production — diabetic symptoms that can lead to other health problems, including nerve damage and blindness.

“We’re very excited about the effects we’ve seen and are eager to bring the extract to patients,” one of the researchers, Anders Rosengren of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden,  “We saw a reduction of glucose of about 10 percent, which is sufficient to reduce complications in the eyes, kidneys and blood.”

That 10 percent average reduction occurred in a sample of 97 human volunteers signed up to a 12-week randomized, placebo-controlled trial.  And get this, participants who were obese and who had higher baseline glucose levels, to begin with, benefitted the most from the study.

Although the dose was the equivalent of approximately 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of broccoli daily – a wheel barrels worth of the vegetable – scientists hope the medicine could be adapted into a powder form.

Keep in mind, during the trial, all but three of the subjects continued to take metformin, a drug designed to improve blood sugar regulation in diabetics.

Scientists are hoping that sulforaphane could eventually replace metformin for the 15 percent diabetics who can’t take metformin because of the associated risks of kidney damage. The two chemicals take different approaches: sulforaphane suppresses the enzymes in the liver that stimulate glucose production, whereas metformin makes cells more sensitive to insulin.

Before the human trial, the researchers also found sulforaphane was able to reduce glucose production in liver cells grown in a lab, and shift liver gene expression away from an abnormal, diseased state in diabetic rats.

However, more intensive and more detailed studies are needed before the drug can get approved.