Mention sorghum to the average person on the street and you will likely get a blank expression and a “what is that” comment. In the United States alone, over 9.8 metric tons of this member of the grass family is produced annually, mostly for feed for farm animals. Sorghum is grown in over 66 countries and is used to produce gluten-free products like beer for people with celiac’s disease.

A new finding, presented at the April 29th Experimental Biology ’07 meeting, showed that sorghum bran reduced white blood cells’ production of a number of inflammation-linked chemicals including tumor-necrosis-factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and interleukin-1-beta (IL-1-beta). TNF-alpha was reduced by 80 percent and IL-I-beta was reduced by more than 99 percent in mice when exposed to a sorghum bran mixture. Wound swelling on mice was reduced by 60 percent when an extract of the grass was applied within 6 hours of occurence.

Although this is early in the research game, sorghum may turn out to be an important player in anti-inflammatory medicine instead of harsh painkiller drugs filled with side-effects.