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Cycad neurotoxins, consumption of flying foxes, and ALS-PDC disease in Guam

From the Institute for Ethnobotany (Dr. Cox), National Tropical Botanical Garden, Kalaheo, HI; and Department of Neurology (Dr. Sacks), Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY.

Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Paul Alan Cox, Institute for Ethnobotany, National Tropical Botanical Garden, 3530 Papalina Road, Kalaheo, Kauai, HI 96741.

The Chamorro people of Guam have been afflicted with a complex of neurodegenerative diseases (now known as ALS-PDC) with similarities to ALS, AD, and PD at a far higher rate than other populations throughout the world. Chamorro consumption of flying foxes may have generated sufficiently high cumulative doses of plant neurotoxins to result in ALS-PDC neuropathologies, since the flying foxes forage on neurotoxic cycad seeds.

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