Determınatıon amygdalin content of apricot seeds with HPLC method that growıng in Malatya region

Aim: There are two different opinions about consumption of apricot seeds in our society. First opinion is, all of the apricot seeds are beneficial and do not cause poisoning. Second opinion is, all of the apricot seeds are toxic and ingestion of them is harmful. In our study we planned to quantify the amygdalin contents in different species of apricot seeds to assess the accuracy of these two opposite opinions. Amygdalin that is taken by ingestion of apricot seeds hydrolyzes HCN in our body and can lead to acute cyanide poisoning. Acute cyanide intoxication is more common in children than adults because younger age is more prone than older. There is no knowledge about the amount of apricot seeds for cyanide poisoning. We aimed to clarify the topic that is related to the apricot seed poisoning and increase awareness among the community and healthcare workers. Materials and Methods: In this study, amygdalin contents in seeds of 13 different sulphour-free bitter and sweet apricot species (sweet; Hacıhaliloğlu, Hasanbey, Kabaaşı, Çöloğlu, Çataloğlu, Soğancı Şekerpare, Hungarian Best, Roksana bitter; Alyanak, Paviot, Ninfa, Turfanda Eskimalatya) and two apricot species (Hacıhaliloğlu, Kabaaşı) sulphourous, roasted, roasted and sulphourous forms by HPLC method. The seeds of apricot species were obtained from the İnönü University Apricot Research Center in Turkey. Based on data from the literature, was detected the amount of HCN which will be released this amount amygdalin and number of seeds can cause acute cyanide poisoning for a child 6 years old at an average weight of 20 kg. Results: In our study we detected hıgher amounts of amygdalin contents in bitter apricot seeds than the sweet species The mean amygdalin content of bitter apricot seeds was found 26.27 ± 14.4 mg/g. The mean amygdalin content of sweet apricot seeds was found 0.16 ± 0,09 mg/g. A statistically significant difference was observed between these two groups (p = 0.03). The highest amygdalin content was detected in Paviot bitter seed (44.41mg/g) among all of them. Amount of HCN which released from this amygdalin content was calculated as 2.5 mg/g. The number of seeds which can lead to acute cyanide intoxication for a child 6 years old at an average weight of 20 kg was detected as 7 for Paviot species. The lowest amygdalin content (13.96 mg/g) among the bitter apricot seeds was found in Turfanda Eskimalatya. The highest amygdalin content among the sweet apricot seeds was found in Hasanbey (0.4 mg/g) which the production is important in Malatya and fresh consumption is more common than dried form. Consumption average 852 number of this species seeds can cause cyanide poisoning. The lowest amygdalin content of all seeds that is detectable with our method was in Kabaaşı non-sulphoured and roasted form (0.09 mg/g). The amygdalin content of Kabaaşı sulphoured, Çöloğlu, Çataloğlu and Şekerpare species were detected lower than the level of 0.08 mg/g which is the lowest limit that is detected in our method. Conclusions: It is important to prevent acute cyanide poisoning in children resulting from ingestion of bitter apricot seeds that may lead to death. Therefore bitter apricot seeds should not be eaten and is recomended to implementation of these seeds according to safety rules for the toxic substances. The false perception about the statement that the sweet seeds are poisonous should be corrected.