Novel research strategy for safe use of legume proteins in human nutrition

Abstract

Earlier studies on protein antinutrients and allergens naturally present in legume seeds have shown that these compounds are responsible for the impaired performance of experimental animals when exposed for a long term. These reactions were characterized by lowered nutritional performance, reduced growth, pure digestion and absorption, changes in gut motility, structural damage in small intestine and diarrhoea. A lot of efforts were made for gathering data on heat stability and resistance to chemical or enzyme treatments of these compounds to reduce or eliminate these harmful effects.A novel research approach has described that these compounds have a special regulatory role in the gut metabolism and modulate hormone and immune responses which resulted in a novel concept of “nonnutritive biologically active compound”. These studies revealed that the chemical structure of these compounds was responsible for the induction of such physiological reactions as increased endogen N-loss, change in the plasma amino acid concentration or plasma lipid composition with reduction of total cholesterol level or developing of harmful immune responses to luminal antigens resistant to the gut digestion. Resent studies were therefore related to the description of their interaction with the gut metabolism and understanding of the modulation of gut immune responses to luminal antigens.This review was inspired to summarise the research efforts on the above field performed by the Nutritional and Biological Units of the Central Food Research Institute.