Lentils - Disease Prevention Breakthrough
A major breakthrough has been made by a PhD student in prevention of selenium – a micronutrient and mineral deficiency in humans. Selenium is linked to probable incidences of certain diseases including male infertility, heart diseases, viral infections and some cancers.
Globally, over one billion individuals have selenium deficiency as a result of poor diet and majority of them are from countries like Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia where levels of selenium in soil are extremely low.
Mahmudur Rahman, a PhD student in Bangladesh, along with his supervisors Professor William Erskine and Professor Kadambot Siddique has been successful in developing a method to increase selenium concentration in lentil …show more content…
In Australia, in collaboration with Department of Environment and Primary Industries and South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) they demonstrated that during lentil plant’s reproduction stage, applying 40 g/ha (gram per hectare) of selenium on it directly increased the seeds’ concentration by 10 times i.e. from 200 μg/kg to 2772 μg/kg (micrograms per kilogram).
Professor Erskine stated that the research they conducted demonstrated without the alteration of food habits, biofortified lentils have the ability to provide sufficient dietary selenium to individuals residing in countries with low levels of selenium in their soil like Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia. He also added that with a mere consumption of 20 gm of biofortified lentils provide the recommended daily selenium count.
The studies in Bangladesh show that the average concentration of seed selenium is around 312 μg/kg in comparison with 200 μg/kg in Australia. According to the research in both countries, the various varieties and location of lentils play a major factor in the concentration levels of selenium in
A major breakthrough has been made by a PhD student in prevention of selenium – a micronutrient and mineral deficiency in humans. Selenium is linked to probable incidences of certain diseases including male infertility, heart diseases, viral infections and some cancers.
Globally, over one billion individuals have selenium deficiency as a result of poor diet and majority of them are from countries like Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia where levels of selenium in soil are extremely low.
Mahmudur Rahman, a PhD student in Bangladesh, along with his supervisors Professor William Erskine and Professor Kadambot Siddique has been successful in developing a method to increase selenium concentration in lentil …show more content…
In Australia, in collaboration with Department of Environment and Primary Industries and South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) they demonstrated that during lentil plant’s reproduction stage, applying 40 g/ha (gram per hectare) of selenium on it directly increased the seeds’ concentration by 10 times i.e. from 200 μg/kg to 2772 μg/kg (micrograms per kilogram).
Professor Erskine stated that the research they conducted demonstrated without the alteration of food habits, biofortified lentils have the ability to provide sufficient dietary selenium to individuals residing in countries with low levels of selenium in their soil like Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia. He also added that with a mere consumption of 20 gm of biofortified lentils provide the recommended daily selenium count.
The studies in Bangladesh show that the average concentration of seed selenium is around 312 μg/kg in comparison with 200 μg/kg in Australia. According to the research in both countries, the various varieties and location of lentils play a major factor in the concentration levels of selenium in