Writer: Rod Santa Ana III, (956) 968-5581,r-santaana@tamu.edu
Contact: Dr. Bhimu Patil, (956) 968-2132,b-patil@tamu.edu
WESLACO — Every day, Dr. Bhimu Patil consumes several different kinds of fruit. It’s a habit he’s always enjoyed, but never with the purpose he has today. He’s convinced that if others knew what he knows, they would eat fruit also.
As a citrus researcher at the Texas A&M University-Kingsville Citrus Center at Weslaco, Patil said he now knows that fruits and vegetables contain phytonutrients, naturally occurring compounds that ward off certain cancers and heart disease and help fight infection.
His life’s goal as a post-harvest physiologist is to isolate and identify the many hundreds of chemical compounds found in citrus and enhance those that are phytonutrients.
Phytonutrients go by several names, including phytochemicals, bioactive compounds and functional components.
“I believe that eventually if we can scientifically tell people, ‘Eat this fruit because it has this particular phytonutrient that prevents this specific disease,’ people will eat more fruit and less junk food. Diseases will decline, we’ll save in medical costs and the agriculture industry will prosper,” Patil said.
But before the scientific community can tell the public with documented evidence which compounds in foods prevent which diseases, those compounds must be isolated, identified and tested in cell cultures, on animal models and in human clinical trials. The process is lengthy and costly, but an exercise Patil is convinced must be completed.
For his part, Patil can only isolate and identify citrus cmpounds. Those he thinks have human health benefits are sent to other labs for further testing.
He said that to date, three classes of citrus phytonutrients, including lycopene, flavonoids and limonoids, have advanced to animal studies where they’ve shown potential to prevent oral, colon and prostate cancers. Another recent study conducted in human clinical trials in San Diego showed grapefruit to be beneficial in weight loss efforts.
Once human clinical trials have identified certain citrus compounds as being phytonutrients, scientists can then increase their amounts in citrus using several possible methods.
“Those compounds can be enhanced by traditional breeding methods or by using molecular technology to develop enhanced varieties,” said Patil. “Or they can be increased by doing research and advising growers to alter their pre- or post-harvest practices, such as optimizing fertilizer applications or altering their storage times.”
While it’s possible to synthetically reproduce a phytonutrient in pill form, known as nutraceuticals, Patil said it’s preferable to consume entire fruits and vegetables because so little is known about the negative effects of such concentrated doses of phytonutrients. Nor is much known about the synergistic benefits derived by consuming all compounds found in foods.
“We may not yet know what all the compounds in fruits and vegetables do for us, but I don’t think nature would produce compounds in fruits and vegetables that are toxic, like you might encounter with concentrated amounts in a pill,” he said.
To generate interest in citrus phytonutrients that could lead to funding for advanced studies, Patil, along with the graduate students in his laboratory and his colleagues at other institutions, periodically present their findings at scientific conferences throughout the country.
He is arranging to make presentations later this summer at the annual meeting of the American Society for Horticultural Sciences in Austin and at the annual meeting of the American Chmical Society in Philadelphia.
“It’s important that we understand how phytonutrients work, how they help us, how much of them we need and how to enhance phytonutrients in the foods we eat,” Patil said. “Science can tell us all this and I’m doing all that I can in this endeavor because I’d like to see all that explained in my lifetime.”
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