Lytico-Bodig disease

Lytico-bodig, sometimes spelled Lytigo-bodig, is the name of a disease in the language of Chamorro. It is referred to by neuroscientists as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis-parkinsonism-dementia (ALS-PDC), a term coined by Asao Hirano and colleagues in 1961. It is a neurodegenerative disease of uncertain etiology that exists in the United States territory of Guam.

The disease resembles Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's. First reports of the disease surfaced in three death certificates on Guam in 1904. These death certificates made some mention of paralysis. The frequency of cases grew amongst the Chamorro people on Guam until it was the leading cause of adult death between 1945 and 1956. The incidence rate was 200 per 100,000 per year and it was 100 times more prevalent than in the rest of the world.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks detailed this disease in his book The Island of the Colorblind . Sacks and Paul Alan Cox subsequently wrote that a local species of flying fox, which is now extinct due to overhunting, had been feeding on cycads and concentrating β-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA), a known neurotoxin, in its body fat. The hypothesis suggests that consumption of the fruit bat by the Chamorro exposed them to BMAA, contributing to or causing their condition. Decline in consumption of the bats has been linked to a decline in the incidence of the disease.

Lytico-bodig was discovered in 1945 by Zimmerman and subsequently reported by physicians of the US Navy and Public Health Service. Scientists noted a 50- to 100-fold greater occurrence of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis than the rest of the world, and a notable increase in parkinsonism with dementia. By 1940, this elusive disease was the primary cause of death in adult Chamorros.

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