Publications
| neurotoxic flying foxes as dietary items for the chamorro people, marianas islands. | fanihi -- flying foxes (pteropus mariannus mariannus, pteropodidae) -- are a highly salient component of the traditional chamorro diet. a neurotoxic, non-protein amino acid, beta-methylamino-l-alanine (bmaa) accumulates in flying foxes, which forage on the seeds of cycas micronesica (cycadaceae) in guam's forests. bmaa occurs throughout flying fox tissues both as a free amino acid and in a protein-bound form. it is not destroyed by cooking. protein-bound bmaa also remains in cycad flour which ha ... | 2006 | 16457975 |
| biomagnification of cycad neurotoxins in flying foxes: implications for als-pdc in guam. | beta-methylamino-l-alanine (bmaa) occurs in higher levels in museum specimens of the guamanian flying fox than in the cycad seeds the flying foxes feed on, confirming the hypothesis that cycad neurotoxins are biomagnified within the guam ecosystem. consumption of a single flying fox may have resulted in an equivalent bmaa dose obtained from eating 174 to 1,014 kg of processed cycad flour. traditional feasting on flying foxes may be related to the prevalence of neuropathologic disease in guam. | 2003 | 12913204 |