When it comes to malignant tumors of the digestive tract, everyone can think of stomach cancer or colorectal cancer.
In fact, in recent years, there is also a kind of gastrointestinal cancer incidence rate is increasing year by year, and even its annual death toll has exceeded colorectal cancer, becoming the second largest number of deaths in China's digestive tract cancer, it is: "esophageal cancer"!
The so-called esophageal cancer, as the name suggests, is a malignant tumor that appears in the epithelial tissue of the esophagus, and the disease occurs in middle-aged and elderly people over 40 years old, and the incidence rate of men is significantly higher than that of women.
According to the data currently available in clinical practice, the emergence of esophageal cancer is related to objective factors such as genetic susceptibility, age, and gender, but more often the reason is a variety of bad habits.
Therefore, if you want to prevent esophageal cancer, you should first adjust from your habits and do the following 5 things to stay away from esophageal cancer:
1, away from processed meats and cured foods: the reason why these two types of food are discussed together is because their processing steps are inseparable from the addition of salt, and the food after preparation will produce a substance called "nitrite".
In the environment of gastric acid, nitrite will harden with amides, tertiary amines, secondary ammonia and other substances in food, and eventually produce a class of carcinogen nitrosamines, which are extremely carcinogenic.
Not only that, foods containing too much salt will also directly cause damage to the mucosa of the esophagus, induce problems such as inflammation, ulceration or erosion of the esophagus, and then increase the chance of cancer.
Therefore, in daily life, we should minimize the intake of high salt, processed meat, and cured foods, and maintain a light diet;
2, do not eat hot food: in the list of carcinogens released by THE WHO, food above 65 ° C is also in the ranks of carcinogens, which is included in class 2a carcinogens, that is to say, it may be carcinogenic to the human body.
The reason for this is that the temperature that the esophageal mucosa can accept is very limited, when the temperature of food or water is too high, it will cause mild burns to the esophageal mucosa, and under repeated burns, it will develop into inflammation, ulcers, intestinal metaplasia or atypical hyperplasia, which will increase the chance of cancer;
3, eat more vegetables and fruits: there are relevant research surveys show that in the high incidence of esophageal cancer, residents are mostly deficient in vitamin A, vitamin B2, vitamin C and other essential vitamin components of the body, so in the clinical view, vitamin deficiency and esophageal cancer are also closely related.
In daily life, we should increase the proportion of vegetables and fruits, and can consume more than 3 different types of vegetables and eat more than two different fruits for three meals a day;
4, abstain from alcohol: many people mistakenly believe that alcohol will only cause damage to the "liver" of metabolic organs. But in fact, the harm caused by alcohol is much more than that.
You know, when alcohol enters the body, it will first pass through the mouth, esophageal mucosa, and stomach. The esophageal mucosa is very delicate and fragile, and the irritation of alcohol is easy to cause mucosal damage.
A slight injury, the mucous membrane can repair itself, but long-term large amounts of alcohol abuse, especially drinking spirits, will cause inflammation, trauma, increase the possibility of cancer;
5. Smoking cessation: According to relevant research surveys, cigarettes are not only a high risk factor for lung cancer, but also increase the chance of esophageal cancer.
This is mainly because cigarettes contain a large number of chemical substances, of which multi-chain aromatic hydrocarbon compounds, nitrosamines, etc. have strong carcinogenicity;
They will cause irritation to the epithelial tissue of the esophagus mucosa, prompting cellular DNA mutations, oncogenes are activated, and the longer the long-term large number of cigarettes, the greater the chance of future esophageal cancer.
If you don't want esophageal cancer to find yourself, it is necessary to do the above points from now on. The point that needs to be emphasized here is that after all, the incidence of esophageal cancer is also related to genetic predisposition factors and age growth;
Therefore, if there have been bad habits, a family history of esophageal cancer, and chronic diseases of the esophagus, they belong to the high-risk group of esophageal cancer, in addition to the above points, regular medical treatment for targeted screening is also necessary.