February 3, 2017.
A team of researchers from the Indian National Center for Disease Control and the Indian Office in Central Atlanta, USA, have come to understand why each spring hundreds of children die in a poor part of India. .
Hundreds of children were dying for no apparent reason
The village of Muzaffarpur, located in one of the poorest regions of India, in the northeast of the country, seemed to be struck by a sort of curse: every spring, hundreds of children died for no apparent reason. They first began to suffer from convulsions and fever, fell into a coma and ended up dying in almost 40% of cases.
But researchers have finally found an explanation for these sudden deaths. According to their work, published in the scientific journal The Lancet, they have indeed noted the presence of a toxin in two thirds of patients. This is the methylene cyclopropyl-glycine molecule found in lychee seeds, very popular with children this season. Associated with a state of hypoglycemia and undernutrition, this substance would do serious damage.
A substance that causes severe inflammation of the brain
The toxicity of the molecule is more potent when children are fasting, if they already suffer from nutritional deficiencies and if they consume a large amount. In this poor region, the arrival of lychees in orchards attracts many hungry children, who could not imagine that these fruits could trigger severe inflammation of the brain and acute hypoglycemia.
The mystery having been solved, the Indian government recommended that parents of children in Muzaffarpur and neighboring villages give their children a real meal before they eat lychees. The consumption of this fruit must also not be abusive, especially if the child does not eat enough and in a balanced way the rest of the year. Since that recommendation, deaths have halved.
Marine Rondot
Read also: The benefits of lychee
