Natural Toxins

Natural Toxins

By: Jeremy Higley

What are Toxins and Where are they Found? • Toxin: Toxin Any poison produced by an organism, including the bacterial toxins that are causative agents of diphtheria, and tetanus, ect., and such plant and animal toxins as ricin and snake venon. • EVERYWHERE

Chemicals Found in Foods • Items expected in Foods – Fat, carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, minerals

• Chemicals that neither detract or enhance wholesomeness and quality of food

• Beneficial chemicals not defined as nutrients – anticarcinogens

• NATURAL TOXINS – mutagens, teratogens, antinutrients, and carcinogens

Origin of Toxins • Toxins are likely a protective mechanism for their hosts – Plants • Numbers of plants used for food is much smaller than those not used largely because of toxins • Primitive people were largely meat eaters until they learned that cooking inactivated many toxins

– The same is likely with animals

Describing a natural food toxicant • Structure – Dissimilar Compounds – Simple change in structure changes function

• Bioassay is only sure way

Conditions Under Which Natural Toxicants Create Problems • Normal food constituent eaten in normal amounts is toxic due to some inborn error of metabolism or some reaction • Normal food constituent is eaten in normal amounts by an individual with abnormal sensitivity such as an allergy

Conditions Under Which Natural Toxicants Create Problems • A normal food constituent is eaten in abnormal amounts so that toxicity results • An abnormal food constituent is eaten in normal amounts

Inborn Errors of Metabolism • Inborn Error – Lactase intolerance – Sucrase deficiency – Fuctose intolerence – Phenylketonuria – Hemochromatosis

• Offending Food – Lactose in milk products – Sucrose – Fructose from sugars and F&V – Phenyalanine from protein and aspartame – Iron; excess levels are stored

Top Ten Food Allergens • • • • •

Milk Wheat Nuts Citrus Strawberries

• • • • •

Fish and/or shellfish Eggs Peanuts Melons Soy

Misuse or Excess Consumption of Food • Rhubarb – 9 lbs of stalks, lowest recorded fatality – leaves are very toxic and fatalities have been recorded with small amounts

Abnormal Food Constituent • Puffer Fish – Great delicacy in Japan – If toxic portions are not excised with extreme care, consumption of the fish can be lethal

• Honey Bees – Collecting nectar from plants containing poisonous alkaloids.

Who is at Risk? • Subsistence Economies – People forced to rely on few food staples

• Bizarre diets • Are toxins additive – Not necessarily – The greater the variety of food eaten, the less chance of digesting toxins at dangerous levels

Common toxins • • • •

Alkaloids Enzyme Inhibitors Plant Phenolics Fats, Sugars, Proteins, and Vitamin Antagonists

Alkaloids • Solanine – A natural pesticide – Found in peel of potato near the eyes – Green potatoes (sunburned) may have a 7 fold increase – 1-5mg solanine/100g potato – 20mg/100g of potato is unfit to eat

• Tomatine – Ripe tomatoes contain 36mg/100g, green tomatoes are much higher

Enzyme Inhibitors • Protease Inhibitors – Found in all plants, especially legumes – Inhibit trypsin, chymotrypsin, and other protein digesting enzymes • In rats, caused poor digestion of enzymes which impaired tissue growth and repair, and resulted in an enlarged pancreas

– Cooking often inactivates protease inhibitors – Humans seem to be less susceptible than animals

Saponins • Found in: soybeans, spinach, asparagus, broccoli, potatoes, apples, egg plant • Disrupt red blood cells, cause diarrhea, vomiting • May reduce blood serum cholesterol • Generally harmless to warm-blooded animals because of protective micro-flora

Goitrogens • Cause of goiters • Found primarily in Brassica species – Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels Sprouts

• These products with low iodine may cause goiter • Responsible for 4% of worlds goiters

Cyanogenic Glycosides • Yield hydrogen cyanide when acted upon by stomach acid or plant enzymes • 30-250mg is lethal to adult male • May cause optic nerve problems, cell dysfunction and death, diabetes • Problems may arise from: – steady diet of lima beans, improperly prepared cassava, dry beans

• Cooking may destroy enzymes that release cyanide, but stomach acid can still release the cyanide

Cyanogenic Glycosides • Dhurrin & amygdalin – almonds (bitter almonds), sorghum, choke & pin cherries, and pits of apple, apricot, cherry, plum – 12 bitter almonds can kill a child – almond paste can be a problem – livestock have died eating the foliage of sorghum and wild black cherries

Cyanide Yield in Various Foods Stuffs • Sorghum

• Cyanide(mg/100g)

– Mature Seed – Leaves & shoots

• • • • •

Almond Apricot seed Peach Seed Pinto Beans Cassava

– 0 – 60-240

• • • • •

290 60 160 17 7-104

Plant Phenolics • Found in all plants • Some are quite toxic and have been banned, e.g. safrole & coumarin • Some posses desirable traits: drugs, processing aids, natural antioxidants • Selecting foods/phenols – texture (lignin)-low – astringency (tannin)-low – color (anthocyanin)-high

Tannins • Found in almost any produce section • Cause of enzymatic browing • Consumption of tannins – varies dramatically between produce items – bananas, grapes, raisins, sorghum, spinach, red wine, beer contain high levels – Other fruits 100-300 mg/kg – Coffee, chocolate, tea: 1g/day

Tannins are Toxic! • Effects in the body – bind protein, precipitate protein of epithelium, cause liver damage – inhibit virtually every digestive enzyme – reduce availability of vit A & B-12 – More toxic if enters into blood stream

• Human fatalities – high concentration of tannic acid in enemas or burn remedies

Tannins • Absorbency – dependent on types & amounts of A.A. in diet – tea & milk, milk binds tannins

• Category I mutagenic & carcinogenic – confirmed, and wide exposure in food, wood, soil, other plant products

Tannins • Quercitin – mutagenic in rats – high levels in onions & allium family • large amounts can cause anemia and death in dogs, horses, and cattle

– humans consume approximately 25kg (50 lbs.) in lifetime

• Tannin-rich herb teas in U.S. – bayberry, comfrey, blackberry leaves, hawthorne berries, and mate.

• Safrole

Other Phenolics

– 80% of oil extracted from sassafras trees – minor component of gumbo, nutmeg, & cinnamon – carcinogenic, banned as a food additive in 1960 • still a popular ingredient in herb teas

• Black Pepper – contains at least 10 compounds that are suspected implicated as either inducing or promoting cancer – may also cause increase in stomach acid, potassium loss, and bleeding in stomach

Don’t Eat?? • Despite continual exposure, risk is small • These compounds may also exhibit antimutigenic, anticarcinorgenic, and antifungal traits • Carcinogenic effects may not be expressed due to small doses or inhibitory effects of other compounds

Fats, Sugars, Proteins, and Vitamin Antagonists

Fat and Sugars • Rancid or Oxidized Fat – Toxic, especially in absence of Vitamin E – Erucic acid (mustard, rapeseed) • liver degeneration and kidney nephrosis

• Sugars – Undigestible • headache, dizziness, and cramps

Proteins & Vitamin Antagonists • Excess Amino Acids – leucine, isoleucine, and valine can be tumor promoters

• Vasoactive amines – cheese, wine, beer, potatoes, bananas, fermented meats & fish, sauerkraut – histamine, tryptamine, tyramine, and serotonin • facial flushing, rapid heart rate, increased blood pressure, and headaches • Tyramine + monoamine oxidase inhibitors >severe complications

Conclusion • Carcinogens and toxicants are present in every meal whether it is natural, processed, raw, or cooked • A highly selective diet against these compounds will be uninteresting and inadequate • Moderation in all things

A contradiction exists in the huge discrepancy in the weight we have hitherto placed on manmade carcinogens-trying to purge our land of them-and natural carcinogens which we have simply ignored. Our emphasis should be on the potency of the chemical and the level of human exposure rather than on the chemical’s natural or artificial origin. -American Council on Science and Health