Normally we’d say that a superfood is packed full of nutrients, can make your hair glossy, your skin glow and so on and so forth. But if we told you that the humble Banana may one day be the key to tackling AIDs, hepatitis C and influenza, you may look at your avocados like under-performers.
Recently we looked into how good healthy foods really are for you, but now we see that bananas - while also an amazing source of potassium and containing more vitamin C than oranges - also carry a unique protein called Banana Lectin (original name, we know).
BanLec (as it’s now referred to) is able to ‘read’ the sugars outside of cells, and can prevent the virus that causes AIDs from entering them. However, it’s not until recently that scientists have been able to develop it for medical use. BanLec has now been tested and it is believed it can be used in antiviral therapy.
"What we have done is exciting because there is potential for BanLec to develop into a broad spectrum antiviral agent, something that is not clinically available to physicians and patients right now," said co-senior author of the study David Markovitz, professor at University of Michigan Medical School in the US.
It’s argued that BanLec cannot only be used in AIDs research, but also to cure influenza, hepatitis C and even Ebola.
Clearly Bananas are superior to an apple in keeping the doctor away.