WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Broccoli is not only loaded with vitamins and minerals--it also carries a substance that may kill ulcer-causing bacteria, researchers said on Monday.

A compound that helps give broccoli its distinctive taste, which some love and others hate, also kills Helicobacter pylori bacteria in the laboratory, French and US researchers found. H. pylori can cause ulcers and is also blamed for most cases of stomach cancer.

The next step is to see if people can cure themselves of an H. pylori infection by eating broccoli and broccoli sprouts, said the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and the French National Scientific Research Center.

Antibiotics can kill H. pylori and prevent ulcers, but they are expensive and have side-effects, which include killing off "good" bacteria that help the body digest food.

"In some parts of Central and South America, Africa and Asia, as much as 80 percent to 90 percent of the population is infected with Helicobacter, likely linked to poverty and conditions of poor sanitation," Jed Fahey, a plant physiologist at Johns Hopkins who worked on the study, said in a statement.

"If future clinical studies show that a food can relieve or prevent diseases associated with this bacterium in people, it could have significant public health implications in the United States and around the world."

Fahey, a study co-author, and The Johns Hopkins University own stock in a company that sells broccoli sprouts and is developing chemoprotective food products.

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