Yahoo! News Story - Neurological Disease Tied to Eating Type of Bat

September 2, 2002

Carol Langer (carol.langer@...) has sent you a news article

Personal message:

Well, have any of you with MSA eaten any of these bats?Hmmmm....Carol Robin bat-free Lexington, MA

Neurological Disease Tied to Eating Type of Bat

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020902/hl_nm/bat_disease_dc_1

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Health - Reuters

Neurological Disease Tied to Eating Type of Bat

Mon Sep 2, 5:32 PM ET

By Alison McCook

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study provides further

evidence to support the link between a neurological disease

among the indigenous population on the island of Guam and a

cultural tradition of eating a type of bat.

In the 1940s, a neurological disease dubbed ALS-PDC

mysteriously plagued the Chamorro population of Guam, producing

symptoms that resemble amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),

Alzheimer's disease (

news -

web sites) and Parkinson's. People with ALS-PDC often

exhibit signs of weakness, paralysis and wasting, inevitably

resulting in death.

The condition was once a leading cause of death among

Chamorro adults, occurring at rates 100 times the rate of ALS

in the US. However, over time, the incidence of ALS-PDC

decreased among the Chamorro just as mysteriously as it first

appeared.

Recently, US researchers suggested that the changing

prevalence of ALS-PDC may be linked to a rise and fall in the

population of the flying fox, a type of bat considered a

delicacy among the Chamorro people.

According to Drs. Alan of the National Tropical

Botanical Gardens in Kauai, Hawaii, and Oliver Sacks of the

Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, the flying fox

consumes a lot of cycad seeds, which contain toxins known to

cause neurological disorders.

Although the Chamorro knew the cycad seeds to be toxic and

may not have snacked on them, and Sacks proposed that the

toxins could accumulate in the tissues of the flying fox,

exposing the humans who consume them to damaging amounts of the

toxins.

This theory jibes with the changes in the concentration of

flying foxes on the island, which began to drop steadily in the

1940s due to their popularity as a delicacy, until they became

classified as endangered.

Recently, Dr. Banack of California State University

in Fullerton presented additional results linking the

occurrence of ALS-PDC to the consumption of flying foxes at a

joint meeting of the Ecological Society of America and the

Society for Ecological Restoration in Tucson, Arizona.

Banack and her colleagues interviewed residents of two

villages, asking them how often they consumed flying foxes.

According to their report, men said they were more likely to

eat the entire bat, while women often stuck with only the

breast meat. This finding may help explain the marked gender

differences in the incidence of ALS-PDC, which strikes men

three times as often as women.

The researchers also learned that because the Chamorro

people believe that eating the flying fox is so important, they

are willing to risk fines or imprisonment to obtain the

animals--imposed because the species is now considered rare.

In an interview with Reuters Health, Banack said that even

though eating the bats is a deep-rooted tradition within

Chamorro culture, traditions can change.

"ALS-PDC is a devastating disease," she said. "Some people

are bound to hear the message and be willing to change their

habits to protect their health."

Banack added that people should always use caution when

eating bush meat. "Free-ranging animals--those that feed on

wild plants in the environment--are eating a whole host of

plant phytotoxins. Plants produce these toxins as a defense

mechanism to stop animals from eating them," she said.

"We control the diet of domesticated animals and do not

feed them foods high in toxins. When people eat bush meat they

are eating the toxins consumed by that animal," Banack noted.

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