Neurolathyrism

The consumption of large quantities of Lathyrus seeds containing high concentrations of the neurotoxic glutamate analogue β-oxalyl-L-α,β-diaminopropionic acid (ODAP, also known as β-N-oxalyl-amino-L-alanine, or BOAA) causes paralysis, characterized by lack of strength in or inability to move the lower limbs, and may involve pyramidal tracts, producing signs of upper motor neuron damage.

The cause of this disease is attributed to beta-aminopropionitrile, which inhibits the copper-containing enzyme lysyl oxidase, responsible for cross-linking procollagen and proelastin.

[citation needed] The toxicological cause of the disease has been attributed to the neurotoxin ODAP which acts as a structural analogue of the neurotransmitter glutamate.

[8] Eating the chickling pea with legumes having high concentrations of sulphur-based amino acids reduces the risk of lathyrism if such grain is available.

Moist heat (boiling, steaming) denatures protease inhibitors which otherwise add to the toxic effect of raw chickling pea through depletion of protective sulfur amino acids.

[citation needed] During WWII, on the order of Colonel I. Murgescu, commandant of the Vapniarka concentration camp in Transnistria, the detainees - most of them Jews - were fed nearly exclusively with fodder pea.

[11] During the post Civil war period in Spain, there were several outbreaks of lathyrism, caused by the shortage of food, which led people to consume excessive amounts of almorta flour.

Particularly the toxin β-cyanoalanine from seeds of V. sativa enhances the toxicity of such a mixture through its inhibition of sulfur amino acid metabolism (conversion of methionine to cysteine leading to excretion of cystathionine in urine) and hence depletion of protective reduced thiols.

[14] Ronald Hamilton suggested in his paper The Silent Fire: ODAP and the death of Christopher McCandless that itinerant traveler Christopher McCandless may have died from starvation after being unable to hunt or gather food due to lathyrism-induced paralysis of his legs caused by eating the seeds of Hedysarum alpinum.