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 • Beneficial chemicals
Foods not defined as
– Fat, carbohydrates, nutrients
protein, vitamins, – anticarcinogens
minerals
• Chemicals that neither
• NATURAL TOXINS
detract or enhance
– mutagens, teratogens,
wholesomeness and antinutrients, and
quality of food 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 • Offending Food
– Lactase – Lactose in milk
intolerance products
– Sucrase deficiency – Sucrose
– Fuctose – Fructose from
intolerence sugars and F&V
– Phenylketonuria – Phenyalanine from
protein and
aspartame
– Hemochromatosis
– Iron; excess levels
are stored
 Top Ten Food Allergens
• Milk • Fish and/or shellfish
• Wheat • Eggs
• Nuts • Peanuts
• Citrus • Melons
• Strawberries • 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 – 0
– Leaves & shoots – 60-240
• Almond • 290
• Apricot seed • 60
• Peach Seed • 160
• Pinto Beans • 17
• Cassava • 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.
 Other Phenolics
• Safrole
– 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