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Natural Toxicants Originating from Food/Diet

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Nutritional Toxicology

Abstract

Even though many of the toxic chemicals found in our environment that concern the general public are man-made, there are also hundreds of naturally occurring poisons from animal, plant, fungal, and microbial sources. In fact, the most toxic chemicals known to man are natural poisons, and it would be unreasonable to suggest, as some of the advertising claims do, that natural constituents of food occur just like they do with synthetic additives.

It has been known for centuries that some natural toxic substances are harmful and are sometimes used for murder, suicide, or even misguided medical treatment. Although natural poisons are relatively rare among accidental poisoning cases compared with poisoning by drug overdose, accidental poisoning by natural substances still happens occasionally. Toxins of natural origin have diverse structures and mechanisms of action, making it impossible to discuss and cover all of them in this chapter individually because of their many categories. In light of this, we will not examine every toxic substance derived from animals, plants, fungi, or microorganisms, but rather just a few interesting and important examples.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, School of Public Health, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Health Science Center, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

    Yan Yu, Kingsley Katleho Mokoena & Crystal Ethan

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  1. Yan Yu
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  1. Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, West China School of Public Health, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China

    Lishi Zhang

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Yu, Y., Mokoena, K.K., Ethan, C. (2022). Natural Toxicants Originating from Food/Diet. In: Zhang, L. (eds) Nutritional Toxicology. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-0872-9_4

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