Areca Nut

Nuts have many uses, both industrial and domestic. For instance, the ivory nut, or tagua, is a source material for the manufacture of buttons and turnery articles. The kola nut supplies ingredients for popular cola beverages in the United States (see Carbonated beverages). StTychnos nux-vomica provides the important medicine and poison, strychnine. The areca or betel nut is chewed by the Indian and Malayan people as a narcotic a slice of the nut is placed in a leaf of the pepper plant Piper betle) together with a pinch of lime the mixture is an acrid, astringent narcotic that dyes the mouth red, blackens and destroys the teeth. The areca nut contains, among other alkaloids, arecoline, an active anthelminthic widely used in veterinary practice for the treatment of tapeworm infections. 

Arecoline is usually stated to be present to the extent of 0-1 per cent., but Chemnitius gives the yield of hydrobromide as 0-35 to 0-4 per cent. Arecaidine and guvacine occur in smaller quantities, whilst guvacoline and arecolidine are found only in minute amounts. Alkaloidal assay processes for areca nuts have been published by Bourcet, and the National Formulary Committee, and Bond has described a method of estimation for arecoline hydrobromide. A microchemical test for the identification of arecoline has been devised by Gornyi. ... 

Guvacoline, CjHjjOjN. K. Hess assigned this name to an alkaloid, obtained by E. Merck from areca nut, which yields a hydrobromide, short prisms, m.p. 144-5°, that he identified with guvacine methyl ester hydrobromide see above). The base is a colourless oil, b.p. 114°/13 mm., which yields a hydrochloride, m.p. 121-2°, a platinichloride, m.p. 211°, and on methylation furnishes a mixture of arecoline methiodide and hydriodide (p. 12). 

Arecoline, CgHj 302N. This, the most important alkaloid of areca nut, is an odourless, alkaline oil, b.p. 209°, volatile in steam, miseible with most organic solvents and water, but extractable from the latter by ether in presence of dissolved salts. The salts are crystalline, but usually deliquescent the hydrobromide, B. HBr, forms slender prisms, m.p. 177-9°, from hot alcohol the aurichloride, B. HAUCI4, is an oil, but the platinichloride, B2. H2PtClg, m.p. 176°, crystallises from water in orange-red rhombs. The methiodide forms glancing prisms, m.p. 173-4°. 

The cultivation and marketing of areca nuts has been described by Kannangara and its use as a masticatory in the Far East is discussed by Mercier.2 ... 

Betel-Quid and Areca Nut Chewing (IARC Monograph) International Agency for Research on Cancer Lyon, France, 1985 Vol. 37, pp 141-291. 

The areca nut is sometimes erroneously referred to as the betel nut (Trivedy et al. 1999). Betel refers to a combined preparation of the areca nut (Areca catechu) and lime (calcium hydroxide), rolled into the leaf of the betel pepper (Piper betle) (Morton 1998). 

Jeng JH, Hahn U, Lin BR, Hsieh CC, Chan CP, Chang MC. (1999). Effects of areca nut, inflorescence piper betle extracts and arecoline on cytotoxicity, total and unscheduled DNA synthesis in cultured gingival keratinocytes. J Oral Pathol Med. 28(2) 64-71. 

Lodge D, Johnston GA, Curtis DR, Brand SJ. (1977). Effects of the Areca nut constituents arecaidine and guvacine on the action of GABA in the cat central nervous system. Brain Res. 136(3) 513-22. 

Trivedy C, Warnakulasuriya S, Peters TJ. (1999). Areca nuts can have deleterious effects. BMJ 318 1287. 

Wilkinson JM, Pollard I. (1993). Accumulation of theophylline, theobromine, and paraxanthine in the fetal rat brain following a single oral dose of caffeine. Brain Res Dev Brain Res. 75(2) 193-99. Winstock AR, Trivedy CR, Warnakulasuriya KAAS, Peters TJ. (In press). A dependency syndrome related to areca nut use some medical and psychological aspects among areca nut users in the Gujarat community in the UK. Addict Biol. 

Paan (betel quid) with tobacco is commonly used. There are four main ingredients in paan betel leaf, areca nut, slaked lime, and catechu tobacco is usually also a component, especially for regular paan users. Sweeteners and flavorings can be added and are often regional. Paan masala is a commercial preparation that is dehydrated and so nonperishable. 

In north India there are various regional chewing products that contain tobacco, areca nut and slaked lime. Some of these include mainpuri tobacco and mawa. Khaini is a mixture of dried tobacco and slaked lime that is held in the mouth and used in northern India. Chewing tobacco alone is not common in India. 

Trivedy CR, Craig G Wamakulasuriya S. (2002) The oral health consequences of chewing areca nut. Addict Biol 1 115-125. 

Tung TH, Chiu YH, Chen LS, Wu HM, Boucher BJ, Chen TH. (2004) A population-based study of the association between areca nut chewing and... 

Chinese hamster ovary cells. The number of aberrant metaphases increased in cultures with 15 mL tobacco extract per milliliter of growth media Water extract of the dried leaf, administered to mice at a dose of 9.40 g/kg, 6 days a week for 10 months, was active on bone marrow. A combination of Piper betle, Areca catechu, and Nicotiana tabacum was used . Seed, administered orally to adults with oral cancer and oral submucosal fibrosis and to healthy chewers, was active. An average of 6 quids of tobacco leaf, Areca nuts, and lime were chewed daily T . ... 

Tobacco Habits Other than Smoking Betel-Quid and Areca-Nut Chewing and Some Related Nitrosamines... 

Areca nuts (betel nuts) are the seeds of Areca catechu (Palmae/Arecaceae), a tall palm cultivated in the Indian and Asian continents. These nuts are mixed with lime, wrapped in leaves of the betel pepper (Piper betle) and then chewed for their stimulant effect, and subsequent feeling of well-being and mild intoxication. The teeth and saliva of chewers stain bright red. The major stimulant alkaloid is arecoline (up to 0.2%) (Figure 6.36), the remainder of the alkaloid content (total about 0.45%) being composed of related reduced pyridine... 

Supplier Areca nuts and betel leaves, MGH young palms, RCS. 

Areca nut 1 Procydidine (used to control extrapyramidal -parkinsonian - with antipsychotic medications) Caused severe rigidity and jaw tremor. This is an established and clinically significant interaction Procydidine is an antimuscarinic agent, i.e. antagonizes the effects of ACh in one set of ACh receptors. Thus, herbal products used culturally with effects similar to ACh, e.g. areca nut will produce enhanced effects at other -nicotinic - receptors to produce adverse effects Avoid chewing betel nut (also found in prepared pan masala )... 

SAFETY PROFILE Suspected carcinogen with experimental carcinogenic and neoplastigenic data. Moderately toxic by intraperitoneal route. Experimental teratogenic and reproductive effects. When heated to decomposition it emits toxic fumes of NOx. See also ARECA NUT, other betel entries, and SMOKELESS TOBACCO. 

Mainpuri tobacco is a chewed mixture of tobacco with slaked Ume, areca nut, camphor, and cloves. It is used in India. 

Zarda is tobacco leaf broken into smaU pieces and boiled in water with Ume and spices to dryness and then colored with vegetable dyes. It is usuaUy chewed mixed with areca nut and spices. 

See also NICOTINE, ARECA NUT, BETEL QUID, N-NITROSO COMPOUNDS, NITROSAMINES, and individual compounds. 

Many of the world s population (more than 200 million people worldwide) chew betel nut quid, a combination of areca nut, betel pepper leaf (from Piper betle), hme paste, and tobacco leaf. The major alkaloid of the areca nut, arecoline, can produce chohnergic adverse effects (such as bronchoconstriction) (1) as well as antagonism of anticholinergic agents (2). The lime in the betel quid causes hydrolysis of arecohne to arecaidine, a central nervous system stimulant, which accounts, together with the essential oil of the betel pepper, for the euphoric effects of chewing betel quid. 

The saliva of betel nut chewers contains nitrosamines derived from areca nut alkaloids (4), and the use of areca nuts has been widely imphcated in the development of oral cancers. 

Unofficial Dragon s Blood Cocoanut oil Carnauba wax Areca nut... 

Paan (a tobacco preparation used with lime, areca nut, or betel quid)... 

Of the several hundred species that comprise the genus Piper, about ten yield food or medicinal drugs useful to humans. They include pepper (P, nigrum L.), the commonly used spice betel (P. betle L.), indigenous to India and Southeast Asia and whose leaves are used with areca nut as masticatories the long peppers (P, officinarum C. DC. and P, longum L.), distributed throughout the Indian subcontinent and used as spices and, of course, P, methysticum. 

Areca nut Betel nut. The charcoal of this nut was favored as an Ingradlent of toothpaste. 

Areca, Betel nuts pinang. Nuts (seeds) of Areca catechu L., Palmaceae. Habit. East Indies. Consiif. Areco-line, arecaidine, guvacine, guvacoline, arecolidine, choline, about 15% red tannin, about 14% fat. Reviews.- L. Marion The Alkaloids of Areca Nut in Manske-Holmes, The Alkaloids Vol. I (Academic Press, New York, 1950) pp 171-175 Raghavan. Earuah, Earn. Bot. 12, 3IS (1958). 

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