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Pregnancy
Published in Judy More, Infant, Child and Adolescent Nutrition, 2021
Recent immigrants to the United Kingdom may not be able to access the foods they would have eaten in their country of origin and may not eat a sufficiently nutritious diet here. They may have poor nutritional status if they have been subjected to famine, food insecurity which happens during wars and/or parasitic infections.
Nuts
Published in Christopher Cumo, Ancestral Diets and Nutrition, 2020
But acorns’ primacy is difficult to verify. Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE) held that humans first ate leaves and grasses, transitioning to acorns only when goddess Ceres gave them nuts.96Affirming the notion of acorns as secondary sustenance was their portrayal as famine food. In this tradition, Galen recounted a famine that compelled farmers to eat their pigs, which ordinarily would have grown fat on acorns.97 Hunger still extreme, farmers consumed what acorns pigs had not devoured. Albala detected no hint from Galen that acorns were second-rate, though this opinion may be doubted because people ate them only after exhausting the first option. Additional evidence of acorns’ nonelite status came from American naturalist Clinton Hart Merriam (1855–1942), who in 1918 described British, French, and Italian resort to acorns only when other edibles were scarce.98
Aquatic Plants Native to Europe
Published in Namrita Lall, Aquatic Plants, 2020
Isa A. Lambrechts, Lydia Gibango, Antonios Chrysargyris, Nikolaos Tzortzakis, Namrita Lall
The tubers are ingested as a nutritional supplement in either the dried form (removing the coat), eaten raw, or as porridge in its powdered form. In France, it is considered a famine food and can be eaten raw or cooked in its flour form. In India, it is eaten raw, roasted with spices, or mixed with flour to prepare bread (Lim 2012). In Pakistan, the roots of the plant are boiled in a 1:1 ratio with Mentha piperita to treat cholera or as a tonic, stimulant, diuretic, or emmenagogue (Qureshi et al. 2010). In Africa, C. rotundus, boiled together with C. speciosus and Azadirachta indica, is used as a remedy against malaria (Peerzada et al. 2015). In Azerbaijan, tubers are used for poor digestion, catarrh of the lungs, and urinary difficulties, as well as a spice (Mehdiyeva et al. 2017). In China, it has been reported for its antifertility properties (Lim 2015).
Prolonged consumption of grass pea (64 g/Cu/day) along with millets and other cereals causes no neurolathyrism
Published in Nutritional Neuroscience, 2021
R. Hari Kumar, Arjun Khandare, A. Laxmaiah, I. Meshram, N. Arlappa, Vakdevi Validandi, K. Venkaiah, P. Amrutha Rao, P. V. Sunu, V. Bhaskar, G. S. Toteja
Excessive consumption of grass pea containing β-N-oxalyl-L-α, β-diaminopropionic acid (β-ODAP) [1], analogue of glutamate for 2–3 months as an exclusive diet, causes an irreversible motor neuron disorder, Neurolathyrism [2–9]. This occurs normally during severe drought and/or famine (food shortage period). The same occurred in recent years in Ethiopian famine in 1996–1997 [10], in Nepal in 1998 [4] and in Afghanistan in 2001 [11]. The incidence of neurolathyrism is rather sporadic and under food insufficient situations where up to 6% of the population are affected [9], this may be due to various reasons like susceptibility (environmental, nutritional, and medical factors) among individuals [12] and grass pea consumption pattern, etc. Epidemiological investigations in the affected communities implicated its association with nutritional deficiencies such as sulfur amino acids. There is also a possibility of some trace element deficiencies [13] like zinc and copper as contributing factors in the onset of the disease. A survey of the food habits and consumption patterns in the recent Ethiopian incident that the manner in which the grass pea meal is prepared could also contribute to the precipitation of the disease [14] while the inclusion of 1/3 cereals in the diet was identified as a protective factor.
Preventive effect of Caralluma fimbriata against high-fat diet induced injury to heart by modulation of tissue lipids, oxidative stress and histological changes in Wistar rats
Published in Archives of Physiology and Biochemistry, 2022
Sudhakara Gujjala, Mallaiah Putakala, Sasi Bhusana Rao Bongu, Rajendran Ramaswamy, Saralakumari Desireddy
Currently used cardioprotective drugs have been associated with a number of side effects and are very expensive. World Health Organisation recommended the use of indigenous medicinal plants because of their easy availability and relatively fewer side effects. Thus, there is an increasing need to search for identifying and selecting inexpensive and safer approaches for the management of CAD along with current therapy. The genus Caralluma (Apocynaceae) comprises about 200 genera and 2500 species, which are distributed throughout the world. Some of the species include but are not limited to: C. indica (Wight & Arn.) N.E.Br, C. fimbriata Wall, C. stalag mifera C.E.C. Fisch, C. tuberculata N.E.Br, C. umbellata Haw, C. penicillata (Deflens.) N.E.Br, C. sinaica (Decne.) A. Berger, C. retrospiciens (Ehrenb.) N.E.Br, C. arabica N.E.Br and C. moniliformis P.R.O. Bally. Caralluma fimbriata Wall. (CF), an edible succulent plant, grows wild in India, Africa, and Europe and was cultivated in Britain as far back as 1830. It is a perennial herb and grows up to 7–8 inch. It has a quadrangular stem devoid of leaves and small flowers of purple colour on the stem facing the sun. It is well known as a famine food, appetite suppressant, and thirst quencher among tribal populations. It grows wild all over India and is also planted as a road side shrub and boundary marker in gardens. Key phytochemical constituents of the herb are pregnane glycosides, flavone glycosides, megastigmane glycosides and saponins. A standardised extract of C. fimbriata containing pregnane and megastigmane glycosides is mainly employed as nutritional supplements to reduce body weight (Gujjala et al. 2016).