Posted on 07/10/2017 3:11:16 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Vitamin A deficiency is one of the leading causes of children's deaths in Uganda - but scientists hope that a new superfruit could significantly lower the statistics
It is also the leading cause of preventable blindness - and can significantly increase the risk of disease from severe infections.
Now scientists in Australia have developed a revolutionary ‘super’ banana, rich in pro-vitamin A, which could save the lives of the hundreds of thousands of children who die from this deficiency every year.
The golden-fleshed fruit was created by researchers from Queensland University of Technology, who have been growing the biofortified bananas for over the last 10 years - thanks to $7.6 million in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The bananas were created by taking genes from a species of provitamin A-rich banana found in Papa New Guinea, which only grows in small bunches.
Scientists then fused it with the ‘household’ Cavendish banana - the bunches which are produced in mass which most people are familiar with seeing in the supermarket.
The result is an unusual orange-coloured banana that could significantly increase the vitamin intake of the consumer.
Writing in Wiley’s Plant Biotechnology journal, Professor James Dale, who led the research, said: “Over the years, we’ve been able to develop a banana that has achieved excellent provitamin A levels, hence the golden-orange rather than cream-coloured flesh.”
The team have already trialled growing the bananas in Australia, where the fruit exceeded expectations by producing double the level of provitamin A than expected.
“Achieving these scientific results along with their publication, is a major milestone in our quest to deliver a more nutritional diet to some of the poorest subsistence communities in Africa,” Prof Dale said. “Our science works. We tried and tested hundreds of different genetic variations here in our lab and in field trials in Queensland until we got the best results.
"These elite genes have been sent to Uganda in test tubes where they have been inserted into Ugandan bananas for field trials there.”
Scientists are now keen to test the results of growing the bananas in East Africa, where cooked bananas are already a staple part of of the country’s diet.
Despite scientists making significant in roads in reducing vitamin A deficiency worldwide, research has found that the deficiency in children aged between six months and five years in Uganda has increased from 20 percent in 2006 to 38 per cent in 2011.
If initial field trials are successful, the researchers hope that their bananas will be self-sufficiently grown by Ugandan farmers by as early as 2021.
I’m just wild about saffron...........they call it mellow yellow..
nice... another new super hero to compete with florida man!
I hope it comes with vitamin A AND a substance that will curtail fertility.
Ridiculous. What next? bananas with viagara?
Libs will oppose it. GMO foods.
And it isn’t just for what they eat, it’s for what the bees pollinate and other environmental impact...
Sorry. I am probably confused. I have a legit excuse,: extremely, severely low iron, doc tells me.
So, OK, we’ll do a do-over. What was your point again, about the condoms?
Yeah, yeah, got that from the git-go, but what does that gave to do with.... Oh, never mind.
I thought it was a hopeful article about saving little boys and girls from preventable blindness caused by Vitamin A deficiency. Something kind of encouraging, for once, about human intelligence and caring.
It says that it is a hoax.
I thought it was a hopeful article about saving little boys and girls from ...
Maybe try re-reading what was quoted in comment #3;
which then led to what that person who goes by "shotgun" posted as snarky response -- just maybe?
Perhaps your iron is low, as you say.
I did not make the comment to which you had strangely replied;
though I did make an attempt towards making a glove joke out of the set-up. I decided to delete it.
--- but here I am having to explain to you how the mix-up happened?
"...article about saving little boys and girls from..."
Check into getting some of than vitamin A, yourself maybe? I hear shark liver can be rich with it, though I'm not recommending those as a source. Basking sharks are so rich with it you don't won't to touch it -- like Trump would maybe say if he knew what I know -- "trust me" you don't want to touch basking shark liver, bare handed.
Thud-headed: yeah, I may be one for the textbooks. My ferritin is supposed to be, like, between 55 and 65.
I’s 1.
As in ONE.
I’m heavily into chicken liver just now. My odd and so far ineffective choice of substance abuse. Got an IV iron infusion this morning though. Explains my periodic, fugitive flashes of brilliance, no doubt.
Thud-headed: yeah, I may be one for the textbooks. My ferritin is supposed to be, like, between 55 and 65.
I’s 1.
As in ONE.
I’m heavily into chicken liver just now. My odd and so far ineffective choice of substance abuse. Got an IV iron infusion this morning though. Explains my periodic, fugitive flashes of brilliance, no doubt.
There is a theory that it was those who left the comfortable, evolved for niche that had to face challenges that made higher intelligence a greater survival advantage, so those who left Africa and faced a variety of new environments to which they had to adapt culturally became smarter.
Hence the average IQ for blacks around 85 versus 100 for whites and 105 for Asians.
What is a hoax?
You don’t live with your parents anymore, you don’t have grow up or anything...
What are you, a James Bond villain?
I learned something new, there. Thanks. Sorry I had to learn it this way.
But just think --- now you automatically qualify for all "tard" pings on FR. There's always a bright side. <];^')
Heavy metals. They do a body good.
Ask for for a side of mercury, it's even heavier?
---then you'd always qualify for tard pings. wouldn't that be nice? There'd be people around here asking, "did anyone ping Mrs. Don-o yet?"
Well if I had moneyI'd tell you what I'd do
I go downtown buy a Mercury or two
Crazy bout a Mercury
Lord I'm crazy bout a Mercury
--try to think of it as one of the first "heavy metal" songs.
There were some of those? how could you tell? ;0
Were they lonesome fugitives like 'ol Merle?
--try to think of it as a rolling stone song before rolling stones were cool.
But if the fugitive "flashes" activity persist for more than four hours, you know what to do -- see a doctor --
or, maybe
There's no telling for sure where those livers have been. Could have been in one of those Arkansas chickens.
It says that the information on “Dr. Jonathan V Wright and foot neuropathy” is a hoax.
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