were taken to Makueni Hospital, treated and discharged. The family looked extremely poor and the only meal they had was boiled and raw cassava. In the second family, a child aged 5 died in Makueni District Hospital while continuing with management. Both families complained of headaches, abdominal pains and discomfort, vomiting, general body weakness and some fever. The Health Officer collected ...

To study the involvement of motor and sensory pathways in neurolathyrism, 19 patients with lathyrism from Unnao, India, where lathyrism is endemic, were studied. The mean age of the patients at the time of the onset of illness was 35.8 (range 18-70) years. The mean duration of illness was 15.6 (range 2-30) years. The clinical picture comprised walking difficulty due to stiffness and mild weakne...

grasspea (lathyrus sativus) is a protein-rich forage legume that contains a neurotoxin (beta-odap) that causes severe malformation of the body’s extremities when eaten in large quantities. various low-toxin lines of grasspea have been developed to reduce the toxin’s concentration in the grain, i.e. to below the 0.2% critical value, but there are indications that zinc (zn) can also reduce the to...

In 1985 French investigators discovered the association of TSP with HTLV-I, a retrovirus discovered in USA in 1980. A few months after the French publication in 1985 TSP was also associated with HTLV-I in Colombia and Jamaica. In 1986 Japanese researchers published the association of HTLV-I with a similar syndrome and named the disease as HAM (HTLV-I Associated Myelopathy). Since 1988 the World...

Neurolathyrism is past history in India since Lathyrus sativus (khesari dal) is no longer used as a staple. A consensus has evolved that khesari dal is harmless as part of a normal diet. L-ODAP (β-N-oxalyl-l-α-diamino propionic acid) the neurotoxic amino acid, from this pulse, is detoxified in humans but not in animals but still no laboratory animal is susceptible to it under acceptable feeding...

It is nearly four decades since the discovery of ODAP as the major neurotoxic constituent of Lathyrus sativus seeds. However, several basic questions relating to neurolathyrism still remain unanswered. We are unable to convince several governments to ban the cultivation of the pulse and to take on a more serious approach to introducing the low toxin varieties. Meanwhile, farmers continue to gro...