Neurotoxin BMAA May be Present in Commercial Seafood

A neurotoxin may be present in commercial seafood. Scientists have discovered that popular commercial seafood purchased from Swedish supermarkets at the Stockholm region contains Beta-Methylamino-L-Alanine (BMAA), which may be linked to neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

"We detected BMAA in blue mussel, oyster, shrimp, plaice, char and herring but not in salmon, cod, perch and crayfish," said Liying Jiang, one of the researchers, in a news release.

BMAA is an amino acid, and amino acids are the building blocks of proteins. There are 20 amino acids commonly used in making proteins but BMAA is not one of them. It's not exactly clear how BMAA leads to the onset of neurodegenerative diseases, but researchers have speculated that it may be mistakenly incorporated into proteins during synthesis.

"It has been suggested that BMAA may be a slow toxin, possibly with a biomagnification potential, meaning that its levels could rise the higher up in the food chain it is found," said Jiang. "Consequently it is important to monitor its distribution in our environment and understand the means by which it gets stored and released by organisms. These are necessary aspects that need to be addressed."

With that said, BMAA is a naturally-occurring amino acid, which was first isolated and identified in extracts from the seeds of cycad trees in the West Pacific island of Guam in 1967. BMAA was then potentially linked to the neurodegenerative diseases that were prevalent in Guam during the 1950s. The fact that BMAA can be found in seafood is somewhat worrying and should be addressed.

The findings are published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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