Contribuții la o istorie a micotoxinelor și a efectelor lor asupra sănătății și psihicului colectiv

Abstract

Mycotoxines are toxic xenobiotics produced by fungi like Aspergillus, Fusarium, Penicillium, Claviceps, şi Alternari, which could reach into macro-organisms by food and fodder administration. The links between mycotoxines and humans are very old and began in Fertile Crest, Central America, and Aegean Area with wild cereals domestication once the nutritive properties of these plants had been recognized. The first recorded effects are coming mainly from these areas through Semitic (Old Testament), Greek (Hippocrate), and Mayan (Popol Vuh) path. The trend of this link presents continuity in time and space since, with the spreading of cereals (commerce, exploration, migration), the plants adapted to boreal climate in which the risk of fungus contamination rises. The aim of this paper is to depict this relation from different angles and perspectives: historical (from the first records to Kenya epidemic in 2004), anthropological (from ecstatic behaviors in Celtic world produced by ergot to dance mania in Middle Age and to the epidemic of LSD in modern times), religious (from druidic shamanisms to St. Anthony’s fire and to Salem trial), social (from the quality of peasant food to the moment of 1907 and to European Regulation concerning mold contamination) and medical (from simple intoxication to Balkanic Endemic Nephropathy). Monolithic” is how John D. Groopman, a professor of environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, describes the literature on aflatoxins mycotoxins produced by Aspergillus spp. “As far as the epidemiology in people goes, the overabundance of literature covers aflatoxins,” he says. This emphasis reflects the central role of aflatoxins, especially aflatoxin B1 (AFB1), in mycotoxicological research since the early 1960s.