Underutilized plants increase biodiversity, improve food and nutrition security, reduce malnutrition, and enhance human health and well-being. Let's put them back on the plate!

The global food system depends on a limited number of plant species. Plants with unsatisfactory nutritional value are overproduced, whereas the wide variety of nutrient-rich plant species used in earlier times remains neglected. Basing our diet on a few crops has wide-ranging negative consequences on nutrition and food security. Although still under-researched, underutilized plants are slowly starting to receive increased recognition. These plants have superior nutritional content and immense potential to contribute to food and nutrition security and increased sustainability. This narrative review provides evidence to encourage the promotion, domestication, and commercialization of underutilized plants. The anti-inflammatory, antidiabetic, and anticancer effects of some of underutilized plants are presented in this review. The outstanding ability of forgotten plants to increase food and nutrition security, boost dietary diversity, reduce malnutrition, and enhance human health and well-being is demonstrated. The main barriers and obstacles to reintroducing underutilized foods are reviewed and recommendations for overcoming nutrition and dietary-related challenges for re-establishing underutilized plants into the global food system are presented. The expansion of underutilized plants for human use is of paramount importance. The exceptional nutritional properties, bioactive potential, and proven health benefits of underutilized plants indicate that increased promotion, domestication, and commercialization of these plants should be strongly supported. Besides health benefits, marginalized plants have the potential to enhance human well-being and improve people's lives in many ways, retain biodiversity, and develop local economies. Therefore, underutilized plants should be used in the broader context of well-balanced and healthy diets.

Distribution of plasma fatty acids is associated with response to chemotherapy in non-Hodgkin's lymphoma patients.

Our recent data have linked plasma phospholipid fatty acid (FA) profile in patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) with the clinical stage and aggressiveness of the disease. Thus, we proposed that plasma FA status in these patients may influence the effect of chemotherapy. The aim of this work was to assess FA status in NHL patients undergoing chemotherapy in relation to their response to therapy. We analyzed plasma FA profile in 47 newly diagnosed NHL patients before chemotherapy, after 3 cycles and after the end of the planned chemotherapy. Patients were treated according to the hospital protocol: 28 patients with cyclophosphamide, doxorubicin, vincristine and prednisone, 7 with other anthracycline-containing regimens, 4 patients with cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisone and 8 with fludarabine-based regimens. Rituximab was added in 22 patients. Ten patients who did not receive all planned chemotherapy due to death or toxicity (non-completers) had significantly lower (p < 0.05) baseline proportion of palmitoleic, linoleic, eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acid, as well as n-3 and n-6 FA, than the patients who completed chemotherapy (completers). Furthermore, the completers were divided according to the response to chemotherapy to complete remission (CR), stable disease and progressive disease (PD). Proportion of palmitic acid after the end of chemotherapy was the highest in the PD group, while stearic acid showed the opposite trend. Palmitoleic acid and all n-3 FA (18:3, 20:5, 22:5 and 22:6) were the highest in the patients in remission and the lowest in PD (p < 0.001). Linoleic acid decreased and arachidonic acid increased from the CR to the PD group (p < 0.001). These results suggest that aberrations in plasma FA may influence response to chemotherapy in patients with NHL.