Lectin for most people. A strict lectin-free diet is unbalanced and dangerously low in many nutrients, requiring significant dietary supplementation to maintain health. Lectins are one of many toxic constituents of many raw plants, which are inactivated by proper processing and preparation (e.g., cooking with heat, fermentation). For example, raw kidney beans naturally contain toxic levels of lectin (e.g. phytohaemagglutinin). Adverse effects may include nutritional deficiencies, and immune (allergic) reactions. Lectins are considered a major family of protein antinutrients (ANCs), which are specific sugar-binding proteins exhibiting reversible carbohydrate-binding activities. Lectins are similar to antibodies in their ability to agglutinate red blood
Lectin their particular high specificity for foreign glycoconjugates (e.g. those of fungi, invertebrates, and animals) and used in biomedicine for blood cell testing and in biochemistry for fractionation. Although they were first discovered more than 100 years ago in plants, now lectins are known to be present throughout nature. It is generally believed that the earliest description of a lectin was given by Peter Hermann Stillmark in his doctoral thesis presented in 1888 to the University of Dorpat. Stillmark isolated ricin, an extremely toxic hemagglutinin, from seeds of the castor plant ("Ricinus communis"). The first lectin to be purified on a