Ms. Liu, 31 years old, has been experiencing frequent headaches recently, and she began to think that it was caused by not resting well, and she didn't take it too seriously.
But as time progresses, the symptoms of headache become more and more severe, and the frequency of occurrence is also frequent, which seriously affects normal life.
It was found that she was suffering from advanced lung cancer, which had metastasized to bones, lymph nodes and brain, and the severe pain in her body was caused by a brain tumor.
This result is difficult for Ms. Liu to accept, except for the headache this time, there is no physical discomfort, why is it terminal cancer?
At present, there are more and more cases of cancer among young people, and many people think that this is related to the large number of food additives in the daily intake of food.
1. Can lung cancer also cause headaches? There are two things to keep in mind to identify cancer pain
Cancer pain is a type of pain that is caused by tumors or tumor treatments, and about 80% of advanced tumors will experience moderate to severe cancer pain, and more than half of these patients have inadequate pain control.
Zhou Zhiguo, deputy director of the pain and hospice ward of Hunan Provincial Cancer Hospital, pointed out that cancer pain is generally divided into three categories in clinical practice:
First, the pain caused by the direct compression of nerves and organs by the tumor accounts for 75~80%. Pain occurs at the site where the cancer metastasizes to the body, such as headache symptoms caused by metastasis to the brain, bone pain caused by metastasis to the bone;
The second is the pain caused by tumor treatment, such as radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surgery, which brings some trauma to the patient's body, which in turn causes pain;
The third is cancer-related pain, which refers to the weakness of patients with advanced cancer, poor immune system function, and easy infection with herpes zoster virus, which in turn will cause herpes zoster neuralgia.
Chief Physician Zhang Yu, Deputy Director of the Department of Oncology of Zhejiang Hospital, reminded that the pain caused by cancer generally has two characteristics.
- The pain present is persistent and progressively worsening;
- It is often accompanied by other complications such as weight loss, fatigue and fractures.
Second, the high incidence of cancer in China is due to eating too many food additives?
Food additives refer to synthetic or natural substances added to food in order to improve food quality, color, flavor, preservative, preservation and other processing processes.
At present, there are about 15,000 species approved for use in the world, and only more than 2,300 species have been approved for use in the mainland, which are divided into 22 categories according to different functions. These include colourants, preservatives, sweeteners, leavening agents and antioxidants.
Many food additives are toxic or even highly toxic. For example, the brine used in the production of brine tofu is toxic, and the acidulant of cola is similar to that of sulfuric acid, which is also toxic.
So why is it harmless for people after eating?
Sun Baoguo, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that we cannot talk about toxicity regardless of dose. Food additives are not beyond the scope in food, and excessive use is harmless to the human body.
But many people still think that food additives are unsafe, and think that food without additives at all is safer, is this idea correct?
The answer is no, when food is exposed to the air, microorganisms and oxygen in the air are waiting for an opportunity, microorganisms will rob the nutrients in the food, and oxygen will oxidize and spoil the nutrients in the food. Not to mention whether there are any foods that do not add food additives at all, even if there are, the safety is very worrying.
Of course, we can not blindly ingest a large number of food additives, especially foods containing fructose syrup, sodium benzoate/benzoic acid, acesulfame potassium, sodium nitrate, acesulfame potassium, synthetic food coloring, and we must eat as little as possible when we see it every day, as long-term excessive intake of these additives poses a great threat to health.
Third, about food additives, these four objective truths must be understood
Food additives have been rendered as terrible as a "flood beast", so that many people naturally resist when they hear about food additives.
In fact, foods with added food additives are not necessarily bad. Zhong Kai, deputy director of the Kexin Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center, said that the additives currently approved for use in the mainland are approved for use in more than two developed countries. As long as the additives are in line with the relevant national standards, the safety is guaranteed.
But we can't deny that many food safety problems are inseparable from food additives, why is this?
Deputy Director Zhong Kai said that the related food safety problems are mainly due to the use of illegal additives beyond the scope of some businesses, including melamine, Sudan dyes, industrial gelatin, etc. The relevant national standards explicitly prohibit the use of these, but there are still businesses who take risks for the sake of profit.
There are also some people who check the ingredient list when buying food on a daily basis, and they dare not buy it directly when they see a large list of additives.
Nguyen Quang Feng, director of the science and technology department of the Food and Nutrition Information Exchange Center, said that the safety of food additives mainly depends on the amount of use and consumption, and there is no necessary relationship between the number of varieties. As long as it is a product that meets the standards, there is no need to worry too much.
In addition, I would like to remind everyone not to blindly superstitious about homemade food in daily life. The food made by the small workshop cannot guarantee the temperature, sterilization and other process conditions, which will provide a great opportunity for the reproduction of bacteria and easily cause safety accidents.
The occurrence of cancer is something that everyone does not want to see, but the cause of its inducement is still unclear, and we cannot blindly buckle the "black pot" on food additives.
Resources:
[1] "Scientific treatment of cancer pain, avoid these misunderstandings!" 》. Healthy China.2022-11-07
[2] Are Food Additives Toxic? Is it harmful to health? 》. China Food News official platform.2023-05-30
[3] "Chinese eat too many food additives? There are so many misconceptions about food additives! 》. Health Times.2019-05-02
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