Effects of lectin ingestion on animal growth and internal organs

Lectins are essential and omnipresent plant constituents. As many foods are of plant origin, the daily ingestion of lectins by both humans and animals is appreciable. For example, in an ad hoc survey, 53 edible plants were shown to contain lectins and approx 30% of fresh and processed food regularly consumed by humans had significant hemagglutinating activity (1). The situation is potentially even more acute in animal nutrition because animal diet is less diverse than that of humans, and in most instances foodstuffs are not thoroughly heat-treated. This is particularly significant in the light of our finding a correlation between lectin activity and antinutritional effects (2). As in evolution, the mammalian gut has been regularly exposed to lectins, they must have played an important part in the development of the digestive system. Although based on experience, most overtly toxic plants have been eliminated from the diet, many plants with appreciable lectin content are still consumed because it has not been easy to relate growth retardation and antinutritional, mild allergic or other subclinical symptoms to the food consumed or a particular component of it. As some lectins are at least partially heat stable and most survive the passage through the gut in functionally and immunologically intact form, their interaction with the gut surface epithelium (3) can damage the gut at high dietary intakes and this may lead to digestive disorders/diseases in some instances. However, it is not generally appreciated that not all lectins are antinutrients and indeed some may have beneficial effects and be of potential value in nutritional practice. Accordingly, it is of considerable importance to establish whether a lectin has deleterious or potentially beneficial effects for mammals. Unfortunately at present there are no adequate in vitro methods to do this reliably and it is usually necessary to carry out in vivo animal feeding studies, despite their relatively cumbersome nature, particularly for large-scale screening.