Review of the Biological and Health Effects of Aflatoxins on Body Organs and Body Systems

Abstract

Aflatoxins are a group of naturally occurring carcinogens that are known to contaminate different human and animal food stuffs. Aflatoxins are poisonous by-products from soil-borne fungus Aspergillus, which is responsible for the decomposition of plant materials [1-9]. The occurrence of aflatoxins foods and food products vary with geographic location, agricultural and agronomic practices. The susceptibility of food product to fungal attack occurs during pre-harvest, transportation, storage, and processing of the foods [1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10]. The problem of aflatoxin contamination of the food products is a common problem in tropical and subtropical regions of the world especially in the developing countries such as the sub-Saharan countries with poor practices and where the environmental conditions of warm temperatures and humidity favors the growth fungi [1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10]. The various food products contaminated with aflatoxins include cereals like maize, sorghum, pearl millet, rice and wheat; oilseeds such as groundnut, soybean, sunflower and cotton; spices like chillies, black pepper, coriander, turmeric and zinger; tree nuts such as almonds, pistachio, walnuts and coconut; and milk and milk products [11]. The aflatoxins were initially isolated and identified as the causative agent in Turkey X disease that caused necrosis of the liver in 1960 and over 100,000 turkeys died in England and USA and the death was attributed to the consumption of a mould-contaminated peanut meal [2, 6, 9, 12, 13]. Very high concentrations of aflatoxins are most often found in nutritive seeds such as maize, nuts and cereal grains in Africa and rice in China and Southeast Asia [2, 6, 9, 12-14].