Assignment : Aflatoxin Metabolism And Cancer

Harvesting during the 1500s-1600s was an important source for villagers to get their own food. However, in the autumn of 1691, the Salem village experienced extreme weather conditions such as high temperatures and humidity. These conditions failed to make crops and forced the villagers to use rye to make their bread. A well-known Salem farmer named Thomas Putnam supplied much of the colony’s rye flour and donated regularly to the Samuel Parris household, who happened to be Elizabeth Parris’ father (Woolf, 2000). Because of the lack of scientific knowledge of bacteria and diseases, mycotoxin allowed funguses to grow on plants. Mycotoxin is a toxic

In addition, the article substantiates the importance of pre-market and post-market analysis of GMOs so as to determine overall safety. The article cites several other research papers by other authors from the scientific community that adds overall credibility to the source. Dr. Harry A. Kuiper is involved in safety assessment of residues of Agrochemicals in food, of health protecting compounds and of genetically modified foods. He was leader of various national and EU-financed projects concerning food safety. Gijs A. Kleter Has a background in post‐graduate biochemical and biomedical research. His main areas of recent publications include the safety of GMOs to be used as food and/or feed, as well as the early identification of emerging food safety risks. Hub P. J. M. Noteborn is a MT-member NVWA having managerial and co-ordinating duties in the process of integrated risk assessment, and leader of the unit. His job is accountable for designing strategic and conceptual aspects and managing national and international (research) programmes. Esther J. Kok is involved in Genomics, Biotechnology, Food Quality and Safety. This article is an extremely relevant source as it provides examples of the various testing methods in determining food safety and demonstrates the unsafe factors and potential risk in consuming

Aspergillus flavus is the most common species associated with aflatoxin contamination of agricultural crops (30, 31). A. flavus is found in temperate and tropical regions in soil and, in agricultural areas, most commonly, on maize, cotton, tree, and ground nuts (88) and less frequently on rice (24). A. flavus populations are highly diverse and their stability in the soil and on the plant is not well understood. An atoxigenic relative of A. flavus, A. oryzae, is widely used in soybean and rice fermentation (20). It is now increasingly clear that A. oryzae is not a separate species but actually is only one of many examples of atoxigenic variants of A. flavus (46;

The cause of death in rats shown in the above research is not because of toxin, but a process that genes are being changed. As the proverb goes, you are what you eat. By eating Bt corn, you might become a person who is coded program to produce insecticide

Today, a genetic engineering technology is widely applied in the food industry, where the genetic composition of inorganic foods is deliberately manipulated for increased yield and cost cutting. Such inorganic and GM foods may contain various nutrients in the standard proportion as that of organic foods1, however; their nutritional quality is quite inferior. In the US, almost 80% of conventional food products contain GMOs2. Moreover, in inorganic dietary supplements, inactive compounds called excipients are used as fillers, binders, coating and glaze materials, coloring ingredients, flavoring agents and preservatives. These excipients do not have any nutritional benefits and are often found to be toxic. Further, a long term consumption of inorganic foods has been known to cause damaging health effects like carcinogenicity, allergies, reproductive defects, gastrointestinal tract problems, pituitary gland disturbance, liver and kidney damage and behavioral changes in children3, 4, 5, 6. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that consumption of arsenic present in inorganic foods for a longer duration leads to skin allergies, neurotoxicity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and skin, bladder and lung

For example, Sodium benzoate and BHT are considered cancerous toxins that can damage human DNA and can cause cystitis cervical cancer. Acrylamides are a “cancerous neurotoxic chemical that has been linked to ovarian and breast cancer. Scientist has tested these claims through lab animals, showing the outcome of liver and kidney diseases, and severe hormonal disruption. They have also found in studies that toxins have been found in fetal and maternal blood. GMO’s are linked to cancer, miscarriages, food allergies, neurological development deficiency’s, and other

Corn is one of the most commonly genetically modified crops, currently, up to 92% of U.S. corn is genetically engineered or genetically modified (Center for Food Safety). Corn can be considered a grain or a vegetable depending on when it is harvested. If it is harvested when it is fully mature and dry it is considered a grain and is commonly milled into corn meal, if it is harvested when it is soft and fresh it is considered a starchy vegetable. Corn is often modified with the bacteria species, Bacillus thuringiensis. Bacillus thuringiensis commonly found in soil, is a bacterium that produces protein toxins that destroy the gut of pests. Adding this bacteria to the corn allows it to have greater protection from pests, tolerance to pesticides, or improve quality of the product (Bessin, n.d). A disadvantage of adding this bacteria to the corn is that the pest can gradually build resistance to any pesticide. An advantage of Bt-corn is that it contains lower levels of mycotoxins. Mycotoxins are toxins that are derived from molds

Soy has been greatly exaggerated as the answer to all our problems for years. Soy, in and of itself, is toxic to the human body unless cooked thoroughly and properly. There are several side affects of soy consumption, but the one I will be discussing is cancer.

Food is one of the most essential things that the human body needs in order to function and coordinate to its fullest potential. There are many sources of food and while some people choose to have different dietary lifestyles, majority of them gather their food from different grocery stores, farmers markets, and/or personal cultivations. Diet plays a major role when it comes to food choices and today there are more food choices than ever before. The variety of choices can sometimes confuse the consumer in the choosing the healthiest product. However, the recent introduction of organic products seems like the right alternative to the high processing meats and high doses of pesticides in conventional fruit and vegetables. Yet, these products will cost up to three times more than regular products. Over the past couple of years the public has become more aware of the dangers and consequences that pesticides do to the body. Pesticides have been used on crops and land in order to prevent damage to the production of crops. While pesticide usage is nothing new to the public, the evolution of such has made almost impossible for the standard human to understand the complexity of the chemical bonds. The continuous adaptations of pest to the chemical composition of the pesticides have increased the need for stronger and complex chemical bonds. Unfortunately for the public the stronger the pesticide the higher the odds that it will remain in the food that is delivered at local stores or

Secondly GMO’s are used in corn. The scientific name for corn is Bt corn Bacillus thuringiensis (Snow et al., 2005). Bt is a soil bacterium with many strains that produce various crystalline protein endotoxins each that affect specific insects(Snow et al., 2005). Genes coding in Bt toxin have been isolated and

This agricultural study will examine the problem of the contamination of food products through pesticide usage in the United States. The United States is s global leader in the use of pesticides for large-scale industrial production of food products, which define the threat to the environment and the health of human beings. The necessity of producing more food for increasing human populations poses a threat in the use of pesticides to increase crop yields. However, pesticides cause inadvertent effects on human health through the toxicity of these chemicals in food products. This effect is counterintuitive to the well-being and nutritional standards of a health growing population in this type of industrial food production. In essence, an analysis of the contamination of industrial food products will be defined through pesticide usage in the United States.

High level of Aluminum in the brain causes the formation of neurofibrilar tangles (the main characteristics of the

A cancerous cell must adapt to various biological, chemical pathways, and modify it to impose its malignant behavior in human’s cell. The authors, Douglas Hanahan and Robert A. Weinberg points out six significant variations in cell physiology that leads to the composition of most of these cancerous cell. The cell’s autonomy in growth signals, insensivity to growth-inhibitory signals, circumvent apoptosis, endless replication, angiogenesis sustainability, as well as neighboring tissue invasion along with metastasis are main acquired capabilities of cancer cells. The article’s significance depends on its simplicity to convey information by providing concise methods as to how the cancer cell acquires the capabilities to turn normal human cells into cancerous one.

Fang & Yang, X., 2007). But (de Vendômois, Roullier, Cellier & Séralini, 2009) show the possible occurrences of toxicology in rats that was feed with three GMOs corn variety. He infer the necessity of studies by long duration to expatiate about cancer, fertility and mental problems in mammals.

A well-known case of mycotoxins contamination of feed, which was the start of a raised concern about the health risks of mycotoxins, was the Turkey-X disease from the early 1960s [74]. In this case, groundnut cake, contaminated with cyclopiazonic acid and aflatoxins, produced by Aspergillus flavus, caused wide-ranging disease and death in turkeys [75]. As illustrated in the case, mycotoxin-containing feed can have serious effects on the health of animals after ingestion. The remaining question for this risk assessment is however whether mycotoxins may end up in the meat of animals, meant for human consumption, and have an effect on human health after ingestion in this way. Observations of aflatoxin- and ochratoxin residues in edible tissues of chicken broilers show that these mycotoxins are relevant in this risk assessment [76]. Other