Amino acid is clue to mystery disease

• Autores: Andy Coghlan
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3057, 2016, pág. 14
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • A chemical called BMAA, found in the cycad seeds that the Chamorro people of the Pacific Island of Guam grind up to make flour, has long been suspected to cause lytigo-bodig. It also accumulates in the tissues of seed-eating flying foxes, which the Chamorro hunt and eat. To see if they could confirm BMAA as the culprit, Paul Cox of the Institute for Ethnomedicine in Wyoming fed fruit spiked with the toxin to monkeys for 140 days. They estimated this was equivalent to the dose a typical islander might get over a lifetime. Although they didn't show cognitive problems, the animals did develop brain abnormalities called tau tangles and deposits of amyloid plaque. The abnormalities were in the same parts of the brain and at densities matching those seen in the islanders.