Boron Is Essential for Both Plants and Animals
At the time, I believe Dr. Toru Matoh of Kyoto University was serving as an assistant professor when he became the first in the world to discover the functional role of boron in plants: namely, that boron cross-links pectin in the plant cell wall. This was a truly significant achievement, revealing for the first time the physiological function of boron, which had long remained unknown. As I was writing an introductory book on plant nutrition, Dr. Matoh kindly sent me the same photographs that were published in the academic journal (reproduced in this book on page 38, Photos 1 and 2). These were extremely valuable data.
Plant cell walls exist in plant cells but not in animal cells. At the time of this discovery, it was widely believed worldwide that boron was required only by plants and not by animals. Accordingly, Professor Eiichi Takahashi explained in both his lectures and his book (Fundamental Knowledge of Plant Nutrition, Nosangyoson Bunka Kyokai, 1993) that boron was essential only for plants, as it helped stabilize substances in the cell wall, and that animals did not require it. Dr. Matoh’s findings were seen as consistent with the prevailing general theory of the time.
However, in January 1999, when I was given the opportunity to lecture at the University of Tokyo, I was informed by Dr. Toru Fujiwara (now Professor at the University of Tokyo), who had just returned from studying in the United States, that this understanding was incorrect. According to experiments conducted by Foulk in 1998, when African clawed frogs were fed a boron-deficient diet and eggs were collected from the parent frogs, the size of the eggs themselves showed no effect of boron deficiency. Nevertheless, after fertilization, more than 90% of the fertilized eggs exhibited abnormal development and eventually died. This demonstrated that boron is also essential for animals.
Silicic Acid Is a Valuable Substance
With regard to silicic acid, I have received considerable guidance and support from Dr. Jianfeng Ma, a professor at Okayama University, who is a junior colleague of mine by twenty years from Kyoto University. In his younger days (2006), he became the first in the world to isolate and identify a silicic acid transporter, and his work was submitted to and accepted by the prestigious scientific journal Nature. I recall that he kindly allowed me to include those invaluable photographs in the preface of my book Frontiers in Crop Nutritional Physiology (Nosangyoson Bunka Kyokai, December 2006).
Since then, Dr. Ma has published an exceptionally large number of research papers, and his achievements are well recognized by officials of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. In the autumn of Reiwa 4 (2022), at the young age of 59, he was awarded the Purple Ribbon Medal. He has also received numerous international honors. In 2023, he received the Norman Borlaug Plant Nutrition Award from the International Fertilizer Association, and in June 2024, he was awarded the Dennis R. Hoagland Award by the American Society of Plant Biologists.
In 2015, silicic acid was officially recognized as a “beneficial substance” for all plants. This recognition was largely due to Dr. Ma’s discovery of the silicic acid transporter. Until then, research on silicic acid had been conducted mainly by Japanese scientists, but today researchers around the world have come to appreciate its importance, resulting in a large number of studies being published.
Although Dr. Ma has not conducted research on the effects of silicic acid on humans, its positive impact on human health is also significant. In particular, Professor Fusako Maehira of the University of the Ryukyus discovered long ago that silicic acid activates so-called longevity hormones. More recently, it has also been found that silicon activates osteocalcin, a hormone associated with bone metabolism. As a result, silicon is now recognized as an essential element for human health as well.
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Health Benefits of Nitrate Ions／Correcting Zinc Deficiency
The Effects of Magnesium / Key Points on the Importance of Iron
