Kwashiorkor
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Kwashiorkor is a disease caused through severe malnutrition, mainly affecting children. It was first identified and described in the 1930s in Ghana.
The word kwashiorkor comes from the Ga language, which is widely spoken in many parts of Ghana. It means ‘one who is physically displaced’, a reference to the fact that the disease often occurs in children who have just been weaned off of breast milk. Protein deficiency is important but not the only cause of kwashiorkor. Breastfed children get a number of vital nutrients and amino acids through their mothers’ milk. As long as a mother is eating reasonably well, her child should stay healthy. Once a child is weaned new sources of these vital nutrients are needed. Unfortunately, many people in developing nations eat diets heavy in starch, without the protein and fresh fruits and vegetables they need. Pellagra
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Maize is rich in carbohydrate and several vitamins and minerals, but too much maize or sorghum leads to niacin deficiency(vitamin B3), which causes pellagra (known as the disease of the three ‘D’s – dermatitis, diarrhoea and dementia). Maize was a major part of the first people of the Americas’ diet, but they mixed it with ashes or lime when it was cooking which releases the niacin (see www.nhm.ac.uk/jdsml/nature-online/seeds-of-trade). Europeans and Africans without this knowledge suffered significantly from pellagra.
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Beriberi
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Too much cassava, dried or salted meat and fish prevent the uptake of thiamine (vitamin B1), which causes beriberi. Thiamine is also easily destroyed by light and heat and when foods are soaked in water. When cassava is soaked and dried in
the sun, the thiamine content is almost completely destroyed. The same happens when fish and meat are dried in the sun, salted and later soaked. Beriberi was also common where people eat a lot of mill-polished rice, which removes all the thiamine. Beriberi takes several forms and can cause weight loss, emotional disturbances, impaired senses, pain in the limbs, fever, irregular heart rate and swelling or oedema leading to severe mental illness before heart failure and death. Scurvy
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Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C. It leads to the formation of spots on the skin, spongy gums, and bleeding from the mucous membranes. It causes depression and
an inability to move. Scurvy was common among sailors, pirates and others on ships at sea longer than fruits and vegetables could be stored. Vitamin C is high in plants such as citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, limes, grapefruits), tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages, and green peppers. Vitamins are also affected by different ways of cooking. Enslaved communities had little time or resources (especially fuel and pots) for cooking. One-pot cooking, with ingredients cooked slowly over a fire for hours while people were working, destroyed much of the vitamin content of vegetables and of the dried meat or fish.Fruit and vegetables that were eaten raw provided better nutrients. |