From: Ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
NAIROBI-KENYA
FRIDAY, 16, 2012
Environment Permanent Secretary Ali Mohamed said yesterday that at least 50 Kenyans die due to cancer-related diseases daily. He attributed the problem to poor handling of electronic waste and environmental pollution, including an increase of heavy metals, electronic waste equipment and burning of plastics. This is a serious concern particularly in Nairobi.
In this scenario cancer is not only becoming a major problem in Kenya but also environmental risk state. This is because Kenya had not come up with a system of sorting out electronic waste. Yet most Kenyans don’t know they could be exposed to toxic substances while handling used electronic devices. It calls for creation of awareness.
According to The World Health Organization however, there are several factors that can cause cancer, one of which include people who consume a lot of red meat. Studies carried out by Harvard University in 2010 showed that daily meat eaters have approximately three times the colon cancer risk, compared to those who rarely eat meat.
Women who consume high-fat foods such as meat, dairy products, fried foods, and even vegetable oils are particularly at risk. These products cause a woman’s body to make more estrogens, which encourage cancer cell growth in the breast and other organs that are sensitive to female sex hormones. This suggests that they should avoid fatty foods if possible.
A number of studies have also concluded that meat consumption may play a significant role in kidney and pancreatic cancer risk. Some of these studies have singled out beef and pork consumption and have concluded there is a higher risk for pancreatic cancer with a higher intake of these foods.
Another factor that can cause cancer is air toxics. These are chemicals released into the air that are known or suspected to cause cancer, or other serious health problems, such as birth defects or reproductive effects.
It happens when melting glaciers and ice sheets are releasing cancer-causing pollutants into the air and oceans. The long-lasting chemicals get into the food chain and build up in people’s bodies – triggering tumours, heart disease and infertility.
The study says rising temperatures and more extreme weather are increasing human exposure to pollutants. They travel thousands of miles and they continue to build’. It happens when very small quantities of persistent organic pollutants get into the food chain- as they accumulate in higher and higher levels they go up the food chain.
The study also raises concerns about the increased exposure to DDT – an insecticide banned for use in farming, but still allowed to control disease spread by insects. Every year more than two billion pounds of pesticides is applied to our food supply. That’s about ten pounds per person per year.
Pesticides are not only found in our food supply, they also pollute our water, and the cells in our body. After it rains, these chemicals are carried through storm drains and sewers into creeks, rivers, and our oceans, where they account for more than 90 percent of water pollution.
Sugar substitute, sold commercially as Equal and NutraSweet can also cause cancer. Toxic levels of this substance in the blood can result in mental retardation as well. Some people who have consumed them have complained of dizziness, headaches, epileptic-like seizures, and menstrual problems after ingesting aspartame.
On the other hand, caffeine which is found naturally in tea, coffee, and cocoa, added to many soft drinks and it is one of the few drugs — a stimulant — added to foods, can also make your life at risk.
Since it promotes stomach-acid secretion, which increases the symptoms of peptic ulcers, they can raise blood pressure as well. This is because excessive caffeine intake results in “caffeinism,” with symptoms ranging from nervousness to insomnia. These problems also affect children who drink between 2 to 7 cans of soda a day.
Caffeine may also interfere with reproduction and affect developing fetuses. Experiments on lab animals link caffeine to birth defects such as cleft palates, missing fingers and toes, and skull malformations.
Yet to stop consuming caffeine in some people is impossible. This is because caffeine is mildly addictive, which is why some people experience headaches when they stop drinking it. It is advisable though, that while small amounts of caffeine doesn’t pose a problem for everyone avoid it if you are trying to become or are pregnant.
Although sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate are two closely related chemicals used for centuries to preserve meat, they can also make your life at risk according to the study. The problem begins when nitrite combines with compounds called secondary amines- it forms nitrosamines, extremely powerful cancer-causing chemicals. The chemical reaction occurs most readily at the high temperatures of frying. Nitrite has long been suspected as being a cause of stomach cancer.
Olestra, the fake fat recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is also both dangerous and unnecessary. Olestra was approved over the objection of dozens of leading scientists.
The additive may be fat-free but it has a fatal side-effect: it attaches to valuable nutrients and flushes them out of the body. Some of these nutrients — called carotenoids — appear to protect us from such diseases as lung cancer, prostate cancer, heart disease, and macular degeneration.
The Harvard School of Public Health states that “the long-term consumption of olestra snack foods might therefore result in several thousand unnecessary deaths each year from lung and prostate cancers and heart disease, and hundreds of additional cases of blindness in the elderly due to macular degeneration.
Besides contributing to disease, olestra causes diarrhea and other serious gastrointestinal problems, even at low doses.” It may also cause abdominal cramping and loose stools.
Even though Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are plants or animals that have had their DNA modified, the problem with this is that there is no mandatory safety testing done by the FDA on GMOs, and thus there is no clear proof that these foods are safe, yet almost every food we consume in some extent if not exaggerated are GMOs modified.
Testing that has been done in the past has shown GMOs can increase food toxicity, allergy susceptibility, immune suppression, resistance to antibiotics, and the incidence of cancer.
To be in safer side, here are some simple tips to avoid the Dirty Dozen in your family’s daily meals:
1. Drink lots of pure water; water helps flush your system of toxins and keep you hydrated.
2. Be mindful when eating. The more you pay attention to what you are eating, the better you will eat.
3. Chew your food. Processed foods don’t taste good when they are fully chewed, and you won’t be as tempted to eat them.
4. Eat more whole ORGANIC foods. If it grows in the ground or in a tree, it’s a whole food.
5. Get a good night’s sleep-when you are well rested, your body and mind function better, and you are more likely to make good choices.
6. Turn off the TV! The less TV you watch, the less you will be exposed to food advertising, and the less processed food you will eat. It is good rule of thumb is the more a food is advertised, the worse it probably is for you.
7. Don’t take food packaging claims at face value…be sure to read all labels and educate yourself about what each additive is.
8. Keep a food diary to determine what foods affect you and your family negatively.
9. No matter what, feel good about what you eat. Negative thoughts lead to a negative reality.
This brings us to a bigger question as what is cancer. Cancer is an uncontrolled growth of cells that disrupts body tissues and organs. Cancer cells are not normal in their structure and function. They grow and multiply to form tumors that invade local tissues and sometimes scatter throughout the body.
At the beginning, there are no warning signs to alert us to the disease. Later, the signs of cancer are related to the location of the tumor. As cancer progresses, it produces a wasting away of the body, pale skin, pain, fatigue and loss of appetite.
It is estimated that one out of three persons will have cancer in their lifetimes. About one in six persons will die of cancer. No one knows the exact number of new cancer cases diagnosed, especially in the U.S. each year because no nationwide cancer registry exists.
We do know that about 500,000 cancer deaths occur annually in the U.S. Cancer is the second leading cause of death after heart disease. In the U.S., lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths for both sexes, followed by prostate cancer in males and breast cancer in females.
For children younger than 15 years old, cancer is the second leading cause of death after accidents. Leukemia, brain cancer and cancer related to the endocrine system are the leading cancers in children in this age group.
Cancer development depends on things such as family history (genetics), health, nutrition, personal habits and the environment. Genetic factors by themselves probably account for only a small fraction of cancers.
Most cancers may be prevented through the identification and control of external factors. Approximately 30 percent of cancers are linked to cigarette smoking. The remaining 70 percent are likely the result of interaction among various factors.
Long-term use of birth control pills also increases the risk of cervical cancer. Research suggests that the risk goes up the longer a woman takes “the pill,” but the risk goes back down again after she stops.
A recent study found that women who had ever used an intrauterine device (IUD) had a lower risk of cervical cancer. The effect on risk was seen even in women who had an IUD for less than a year, and the protective effect remained after the IUDs were removed.
Women who were younger than 17 years when they had their first full-term pregnancy are almost 2 times more likely to get cervical cancer later in life than women who waited to get pregnant until they were 25 years or older.
Poor women are at greater risk for cancer of the cervix. This may be because they cannot afford good health care, such as regular Pap tests. Cervical cancer may also run in some families. If your mother or sister had cervical cancer, your chances of getting the disease are 2 to 3 times higher than if no one in the family had it.
Meanwhile, a new study released Monday this week has found that men who are circumcised before their first sexual encounter have a 15 percent lower incidence of prostate cancer than men who are uncircumcised or were circumcised after they first had sex.
Researchers say that because circumcised men are slightly less likely to contract herpes and human papillomavirus (HPV) than uncircumcised men, which previous studies have linked to a higher incidence of prostate cancer, circumcision might offer a level of protection against the disease.
Janet Stanford, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and one of the authors of the report, which was published in the journal Cancer, says the study was a “natural extension” of ones that linked STDs to prostate cancer rates.
The problem with prostate cancer studies is that the disease is so prevalent–up to 30 percent of 50-year-old men may have “what physiologically appears to be prostate cancer.
A new study has also found out that a virus spread during oral sex is now the main cause of throat cancer in people under 50. The human papilloma virus spread during unprotected sex is to blame for a disturbing rise in potentially deadly oral cancers in the last few decades according to scientists.
According to a recent article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, while frequent sexual activity does not increase the risk of developing prostate cancer, unprotected sex may run you to high level of risks.
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