UK scientists have identified previously unknown compounds in the potato that are also found in a herbal used to lower blood pressure, reports Dominique Patton. The natural chemicals, called kukoamines, also selectively affect a chemotherapeutic target for trypanosomes and similar diseases such as sleeping sickness, said the team from the Institute of Food Research (IFR). Kukoamines and related compounds were found at higher levels than some other compounds in potatoes that have a long history of scientific investigation. However, the chemicals are not yet well researched and have only previously been found in an exotic plant (Lycium chinense) whose bark is used to make an infusion in Chinese herbal medicine. The researchers still do not know how stable the compounds are during cooking and must conduct detailed dose-response studies to discover how they affect our health. Yet the unexpected findings, published in yesterday’s issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (vol 53, issue 13, pp5461-6), revealed the benefits of a new type of research - metabolomics. Metabolomics is the science of analysing the diversity of small molecules produced by an organism in relation to genome function and to other properties of interest, such as nutritional status and disease.
