Do you wake up achy, stiff, and exhausted, even after a full night’s sleep?
Chances are, chronic, low-grade inflammation is quietly simmering in your body.
Unlike short-term inflammation, which helps heal injuries or fight infections, this kind doesn’t turn off. It lingers, slowly draining energy, clouding focus, and making it harder to move, think, and feel resilient.
Inflammation is meant to protect and repair, but when it smolders day after day, it becomes a silent saboteur, eroding the energy, clarity, and vitality you rely on every day.
Inflammation: Your Body’s Alarm System
Inflammation is the process where your immune system releases signaling molecules (called cytokines) to fight infection, repair damage, or respond to stress.
- Acute inflammation (short-term) helps heal a cut, recover from a workout, or fight off a virus.
- Chronic inflammation (long-term, low-grade) occurs when that immune response never fully turns off. Instead, it stays slightly activated, producing a constant “low burn” inside the body.
According to researchers at Harvard Medical School, this kind of low-level inflammation is strongly associated with reduced vitality and accelerated aging processes (Harvard Health, 2019).
How Chronic Inflammation Could Be Sapping Your Energy, Focus, and Resilience
Every day, low-grade inflammation can quietly chip away at the things that matter most... your energy, your focus, and how you show up for life.
Here are six ways it might be affecting you:
- Persistent Fatigue: You wake up after a full night’s sleep but still feel drained, reaching for that second (or third) cup of coffee.
- Mental Sluggishness: You struggle to concentrate on tasks, lose track of small details, or feel slower when switching between projects.
- Muscle and Joint Soreness: Your muscles ache for no reason, stairs feel heavier, or simple movements feel more difficult than they should.
- Low Motivation: Tasks that normally feel manageable suddenly feel like a struggle, and it’s harder to get started on projects or workouts.
- Mood Swings or Irritability: You snap at small things, feel impatient, or notice stress hitting you harder than usual.
- Slower Recovery: You notice lingering soreness or fatigue after workouts, minor injuries, or busy days, and it takes longer to bounce back.
Chronic inflammation often operates silently, without visible symptoms. It’s not as obvious as a sprained ankle, but its cumulative effects can leave you feeling like you’re running on empty, mentally and physically.
How Food Shapes Inflammation
One of the biggest drivers of inflammation is the food we eat.
Diets heavy in fried foods, processed meats, refined carbs, and sugary drinks are linked with elevated inflammatory markers like C-reactive protein (CRP).
Excess omega-6 oils, found in many packaged foods, can also push the immune system toward pro-inflammatory signaling (Simopoulos, 2002).
On the other hand, plant-rich diets consistently reduce biomarkers of inflammation.
- Fruits
- Vegetables
- Legumes
- Nuts & seeds
- omega-3-rich foods (like flax, chia, walnuts, and algae)
… These all provide antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds that help restore balance in the body.
And then, there are cruciferous vegetables — like broccoli, kale, and Brussels sprouts.
These vegetables contain glucoraphanin, the precursor to sulforaphane.
Sulforaphane is formed when glucoraphanin combines with the enzyme myrosinase, which is released when the vegetable is chopped or chewed.
This process is what makes sulforaphane one of the most studied natural compounds for its ability to regulate inflammation.
So, what you eat can tip the scale. It can either fuel inflammation or help combat it.
How Sulforaphane Targets Inflammation at the Cellular Level
Sulforaphane, which is formed when glucoraphanin (found in broccoli seeds and sprouts) combines with myrosinase, works by activating the Nrf2 pathway.
Think of it like a master switch that turns on over 200 protective genes in your body. These genes help balance inflammation, support antioxidant activity, and keep cells functioning optimally.
Research supports this.
One study found that sulforaphane activates enzymes that protect cells against oxidative stress, helping them defend against everyday environmental challenges (Zhang et al., 1992).
Another study showed that it modulates inflammatory signaling, helping keep immune responses balanced (Heiss et al., 2001).
Sulforaphane has also been shown to protect cells from exposure to environmental toxins, boosting the body’s natural resilience (Fahey et al., 1997).
In simple terms: sulforaphane helps cool the silent sparks of inflammation before they spread, supporting steady energy, mental clarity, and overall resilience.
Why Most People Don’t Get Enough Sulforaphane
Even though broccoli, kale, and other cruciferous vegetables are packed with the compounds needed to make sulforaphane, it’s not always as simple as just eating them. Here’s why:
- Cooking Destroys Myrosinase. When you cook these veggies, especially at high heat, you destroy most of the myrosinase enzyme, the key player in turning glucoraphanin into sulforaphane. That means even if you’re eating your broccoli, you’re likely not getting much sulforaphane from it.
- Raw Sprouts Aren’t Always Consistent. Eating raw broccoli sprouts is a great way to get sulforaphane, but there’s a catch. The amount of glucoraphanin in sprouts can vary depending on the seed quality, how long they’re grown, and how they’re stored. So even if you’re eating sprouts, you might not be getting a reliable or consistent dose of sulforaphane each time.
- It’s Hard to Get Enough, Every Day. The biggest challenge is that most people just don’t eat enough raw cruciferous vegetables or sprouts consistently. And even if you try, it's hard to make them a regular part of your diet. If you’re not eating them daily, you’re missing out on the full benefits of sulforaphane.
Introducing COMPLEMENT ® Sulfora: The Smarter Way to Support a Healthy Inflammation Response
COMPLEMENT® Sulfora is designed to mimic the way your body naturally creates sulforaphane from raw cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, just without the prep, sprouting, or frozen storage.
Here’s how Sulfora works:
- It’s built around the most important ingredient, Broccoli seed extract, which is standardized to 13% glucoraphanin
- Then it adds Mustard seed extract, a natural source of myrosinase to activate the glucoraphanin and convert it into sulforaphane
- And to aid that process, Sulfora includes Brussels sprouts and kale extracts for added cruciferous support
- Finally, there’s Camu camu for vitamin C synergy, Quercetin and kaempferol, to help tackle inflammation, and Black pepper extract, to help it all absorb better
The formula for Sulfora is the result of a collaboration between Doug Evans, a leading advocate of broccoli sprouts and author of The Sprout Book and COMPLEMENT, guided by world-class sulforaphane research scientists.
Together, they combined their expertise to create a reliable, effective solution that doesn’t require you to grow fresh sprouts or worry about inconsistent levels of glucoraphanin.
Sulfora brings you a truly evidence-based, plant-powered way to balance inflammation.
No hype. No gimmicks. Just the real, science-backed way to support your cells’ natural detox defenses.