More than half of the population of a country chews betel nut, from seventy or eighty elderly people to children of a few years, betel nut has become their daily "snack", and at the same time, one in every 500 people here will develop oral cancer, this country is Papua New Guinea in the southwest Pacific Ocean.
What is betel nut robbery?
Papua New Guinea is an extremely resource-rich country with minerals, cash crops, seabirds, corals... This is a piece of land on earth that is "heaven's reward". But now, you can see almost everywhere in the local area, a blood-red mouth, chewing betel nut, a total of 9 million people, the incidence of oral cancer is the second in the world, 60% of people here have the habit of chewing betel nut, the red juice spit out by people who chew betel nut is simply a petri dish for all kinds of bacteria, so Papua New Guinea's tuberculosis infection rate is also the highest in the world.
Chewing betel nuts in Papua New Guinea has also become a social etiquette, and meeting to take out betel nuts and hand them to each other, may become "fateful" brothers. Betel nut contains a variety of alkaloids, the most important is arecine and arecine, like nicotine in tobacco, betel nutine stimulates the adrenal glands to release the hormone adrenaline, which also stimulates the central nervous system, increases blood pressure, breathing and heart rate, and every time people try to disagree, they are deeply trapped in this gentle and powerful addiction.
In the past, the Papua New Guinea government strongly supported the development of the betel nut industry, which is completely tax-free here, and this fruit has been awarded the title of "green gold". In the capital alone, £500,000 is traded every week. However, in 2003, the National Cancer Research Center, a subsidiary of WHO, conducted a survey in some countries that use betel nut as a snack, and after research, it was determined that betel nut belongs to a class of carcinogens, and this kind of medicinal herb that has been popular for thousands of years has since been on a par with nitrite and arsenic.
After betel nut became an internationally recognized "soft drug", Papua New Guinea planned to order a ban on the sale of betel nut, but betel nut has long become the label and culture of "Papua New Guinea", and it was originally allowed to develop for vested interests, and now young children have become a reserve army for betel nut consumption under the influence of their parents.
The dangers of betel nut
In fact, many people eat betel nut for the first time, it is difficult to accept it at once, obviously feel like a nut in the throat, the throat seems to be pinched, will also feel chest tightness, can not breathe, but as long as you continue to eat, you can feel the "excitement" brought by betel nut, not only the body is hot and sweaty, the spirit is also pleasant, and even has a fluttering feeling.
But if you chew betel nut for many years, slowly, some people have an inexplicable burning sensation in the mouth, and then it is easy to grow blisters, frequent ulcers, and at the same time there is a feeling of dry mouth, even if you drink more water can not quench thirst, and the sense of taste is slowly lost, eating everything has become tasteless, these symptoms are a chronic oral disease called "oral mucosal fibrosis", which develops to the end, the resulting severe pain makes them unable to swallow food at all, and finally they can't even speak, a mouth will be painful and unbearable. Oral mucosal fibrosis is one of the precancerous lesions, and the final destination of these betel nut chewers may be oral cancer.
The origin of betel nut is Malaysia, in China, since ancient times is also a relatively important Chinese medicinal material, although widely cultivated in tropical Asia, only when there is demand will be eaten, but in modern times, betel nut because of the refreshing effect, and addictive, gradually become the same "soft drugs" as tobacco, many countries in East Asia also circulate similar to "betel nut with smoke, boundless mana" saying. As for what mana is produced, others don't know, but this carcinogenic mana is indeed more violent.
There are still many people who do not believe that chewing betel nut is easy to get oral cancer, after all, who can say accurately about the accumulated things, what to cut the face, pull out the gums, is just to scare people.
Betel nut and oral cancer
Normally, oral cancer is not a frequent cancer, after all, our oral mucosal cells will automatically renew, but the betel nut in areca can stimulate our oral mucosal cells, not to the day of renewal will be apoptosis, the old cells should not go, the new cells have not come. At the same time, the wooden filament that comes with betel nut damages the oral mucosa during repeated chewing, which causes abnormal proliferation of cells, and the toxic substances of betel nut will also enter the body along the wound, which is not "killing someone to pass a knife", it is these lesions that make people more likely to suffer from oral cancer.
There is no doubt that Papua New Guinea could have lived a rich life, but the people here used to chew betel nuts from morning to night, which not only made many people lose the ability to work, but also formed a series of industrial chains. As one of the underdeveloped regions of the world, "Papua New Guinea", chewing betel nut makes the incidence of oral cancer high, and the medical level is worrying, so that the cure rate of oral cancer is low, under the small betel nut tree, people seem to see no hope and future.
In China, under some false betel nut propaganda, the betel nut industry has slowly reached hundreds of billions of levels, and even driven by interests, the consumer group has been expanded to teenagers.
Change is always painful, and it took years to put the slogan "smoking is bad for health" on the cigarette pack, so we can also classify betel nut in its original place. With Papua New Guinea's experience, we must also act to stay away from "soft drugs".