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Roots and Tubers
Published in Christopher Cumo, Ancestral Diets and Nutrition, 2020
Around 7000 BCE, New Guineans began clearing land for yams.224 Indonesians were growing them by 5000 BCE. Yam farming spread to Melanesia roughly 3,000 years later. China, acquiring yams before 2000 BCE, may have designated them medicine first and food and pig feed second.225 In the second millennium BCE, Micronesia adopted yams. The tuber reached eastern Polynesia around 1500 BCE, spreading west through its islands during the first millennium CE. One hypothesis holds that fishers harvested wild yams on island coasts, observing that discards germinated. This discovery led them to plant yams, beginning the process of domestication. In southwesternmost Polynesia, New Zealand began growing yams around 400, though consumption of wild tubers probably preceded cultivation. Yams reached India before 600.226 Throughout Southeast Asia and Oceania, they joined banana, plantain (Musa × paradisiaca), breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis), and taro as a staple.227 Separate from these developments, the Indian Ocean’s Madagascar began cultivating yams between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries.228 They were absent from the Mediterranean—including Egypt—and Arabia.
Traditional and Local Knowledge Systems in the Caribbean: Jamaica as a Case Study
Published in David R. Katerere, Wendy Applequist, Oluwaseyi M. Aboyade, Chamunorwa Togo, Traditional and Indigenous Knowledge for the Modern Era, 2019
Neglected and underutilized species (NUS) are useful wild or semi-domesticated varieties and non-timber forest species, and agricultural species that are not amongst the major staple crops (often called “orphan crops”) (Padulosi et al. 2013). NUS are culturally important, adapted to local environments, managed by TK systems, in general not widely traded as commodities, often nutritionally rich, but they are ignored by plant breeders, agricultural researchers, and policymakers, and often considered “poor man’s food” (Padulosi et al. 2013). NUS abound in Jamaica, with examples such as breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg), jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.), June plum (Spondias dulcis Parkinson), noni (Morinda citrifolia L.), moringa (Moringa oleifera Lam.), cho cho (Sechium edule (Jacq.) Sw.), gungo peas (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.), yams (Dioscorea spp.), dasheen (Colocasia esculenta (L.) Schott), coco (Xanthosoma sagittifolium (L.) Schott), and many others (Padulosi et al. 2013, Sander and Vandebroek 2016). These species feature heavily in Jamaican TK and traditional diets, and offer tremendous opportunities for food security, resilience of food systems, income generation, reaffirmation of cultural identity, and empowerment of traditional lifestyles (Padulosi et al. 2013).
Plant Lectins in Cancer Treatment: The Case of Viscum album L.
Published in Spyridon E. Kintzios, Maria G. Barberaki, Evangelia A. Flampouri, Plants That Fight Cancer, 2019
Ricin, extracted from Ricinus communis, is a heterodimer 64 kDa type II ribosome-inactivating protein consisting of two distinct N-glycosylated polypeptide chains joined by a single disulfide bond. Chain B is responsible for cell binding by specifically targeting galactosides residues on cell surfaces. The A chain removes an adenine residue from a loop of 28S ribosomal RNA, preventing protein synthesis (Lord and Spooner 2011). Ricin-induced apoptosis against human cervical cancer cells (HeLa) is mediated by the generation of reactive oxygen species and caspase-3 activation (Rao et al. 2005). In another study, ricin caused apoptotic death to hepatoma cell BEL7404, throughout caspases activation, and PARP cleavage activity (Hu et al. 2001). Concanavalin A is a legume lectin reported to induce mitochondria-mediated apoptosis in murine macrophage PU5-1.8 cells by collapsing mitochondrial membranes, releasing cytochrome c and eventually activating caspases (Liu et al. 2009b). The α-d-galactose-binding native frutalin from breadfruit seeds as well as the recombinant form, frutalin expressed and purified from Pichia pastoris, have similar cytotoxic effects on HeLa cells, by inducing cell apoptosis and inhibiting cell proliferation (Oliveira et al. 2011). Two chito-oligosaccharide specific lectins from Benincasa hispida (BhL) and Datura innoxia (DiL9) possessed antiproliferative activity and induced apoptosis in human pancreatic cancer cells PANC-1 by mitochondrial membrane depolarization leading to the activation of caspases executing cell death (Singh et al. 2016a).
Walking backwards into the future: the need for a holistic evolutionary approach in Pacific health research
Published in Annals of Human Biology, 2018
Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, Anna L. Gosling
There has been much speculation about the diets of early arrivals in the Pacific, but there is general agreement that many of the traditional Pacific crops, such as taro (both Colocasia and Alocasia species), Australimusa bananas, sugarcane (Saccharun officinarum), breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) and ti plant (Cordyline fruticosa) may have originated in New Guinea, as the wild ancestral varieties are native to this region (Yen 1993; Denham 2004; Zerega et al. 2004). The earliest inhabitants of Near Oceania were hunter gatherers, but evidence is accumulating that they may have been involved in forest clearance allowing for improved growing conditions for edible endemic tree and root crops. Summerhayes et al (Summerhayes, Leavesley, et al. 2010) have found evidence at the site of Kosipe, in the New Guinea Highlands (alt 2000 metres), for utilisation of processing of Pandanus and yam (Dioscorea sp) dated as early as 40,000 BP. Arguments have been made for early and independent taro (Colocasia) domestication in New Guinea during the early Holocene (Golson and Gardner 1990). Faunal remains from cave sites on New Britain and New Ireland dating from about 40,000 BP provide evidence of dietary protein including fish, shellfish, birds, reptiles, rats, and bats, and after about 20,000 BP, the marsupial cuscus (Phalanger orientalis), which was translocated from the mainland (Leavesley 2005).
Larvicidal and ovicidal activities of Artocarpus blancoi extracts against Aedes aegypti
Published in Pharmaceutical Biology, 2019
Maria Ruth B. Pineda-Cortel, Rachel Joy R. Cabantog, Paulo M. Caasi, Charles Anson D. Ching, Joseph Benjamin S. Perez, Paulo Gabriel M. Godisan, Cheska Marie G. Latorre, Danielle R. Lucero, Reginald B. Salonga
Artocarpus blancoi (Elm.) Merr. (Moraceae), common name Antipolo, is widely distributed in low to medium elevations of northern Luzon to Palawan and Mindanao. This Philippine endemic plant is described as having a growth pattern size and leaf characteristics the same as that of Rimas or Breadfruit, Artocarpus altilis (Parkinson) Fosberg (Brown 1950). It is utilized in rope manufacture (Brown 1950), as a source of timber, and as a treatment for strangularia (Quisumbing 1978). The Aeta communities of Porac, Pampanga, Philippines, however, utilized the Antipolo tree as part of their diet and as repellent against hematophagous insects by drying and burning the plant (Ragragio et al. 2013).
Ciguatera fish poisoning in the age of discovery and the age of enlightenment
Published in Clinical Toxicology, 2022
Another voyage, led by Captain Bligh aboard HMS Bounty, also mentions a fish poisoning that modern authors speculated was ciguatera [24]. Bligh, who had sailed on Cook’s last voyage, had a mission to transport breadfruit trees from Tahiti to the English colonies in the West Indies to provide inexpensive food for the enslaved people there. Early in the journey from Tahiti bound for the Caribbean, a mutiny made famous in its time by Bligh’s report to the Admiralty [25].