Be careful! These recognized first-class carcinogens may be around us!

Cancer is a major "killer" that threatens the health of Chinese residents. Its morbidity and mortality rates are so high that countless people are "terrified of cancer" and have joined the "cancer prevention army". But do you know? Carcinogens may be everywhere, making it difficult for you to guard against them!

Today, I will give you a list of common Class 1 carcinogens around us to help you identify these hateful "cancer killers".

Classification of carcinogens

The World Health Organization's International Agency for Cancer Research classifies chemicals that have undergone carcinogenicity research into four levels:

Class I carcinogen: It has a clear carcinogenic effect on humans, which has been confirmed by animal experiments and population epidemiological surveys.

Secondary carcinogens: They are divided into 2A and 2B categories according to their probability. 2A carcinogens are likely to cause cancer in humans, that is, they are confirmed carcinogens in animals, but the evidence of their carcinogenicity to humans is limited; 2B carcinogens may cause cancer, that is, there is insufficient evidence of their carcinogenicity to both humans and animals.

Level 3 carcinogen: Its carcinogenicity to humans cannot be classified, that is, it is suspected to be carcinogenic.

Level 4 carcinogen: may not cause cancer to humans.

The list of first-class carcinogens that are clearly carcinogenic includes aflatoxin, formaldehyde, nicotine, nitrite, benzostilbene, alcohol, betel nut, etc. What's more frightening is that these substances are likely to be hidden in our daily lives.

1. Aflatoxin: The strongest biological carcinogen

1 mg of aflatoxin is a carcinogenic dose! It is the strongest biological carcinogen we know of.

Moldy peanuts and corn

Aflatoxin is hidden in moldy foods, especially those with high starch content, such as peanuts, corn, etc. The rice, millet, and beans we often eat, especially in a hot and humid environment, will fall into its clutches once they become moldy.

Spoiled rice

Don’t think you can relax your vigilance once the rice is cooked. Spoiled rice is most likely to produce aflatoxin!

Bitter nuts

If you eat melon seeds that have turned bitter, be sure to spit them out and rinse your mouth immediately, because the bitterness of melon seeds and other nuts comes from aflatoxin produced during the moldy process, and frequent intake will increase the risk of liver cancer.

Unwashed chopsticks

Chopsticks themselves will not grow aflatoxin, but the chopsticks we usually use to eat foods with high starch content such as peanuts and corn are most likely to contain starch. Once they become moldy, aflatoxin will be hidden inside.

Both bare chopsticks and lacquered chopsticks are prone to cracking and storing food residues, which can produce aflatoxin.

Low-quality sesame paste

Some merchants use bran sesame seeds, shrunken peanuts or even spoiled sesame seeds and peanuts as raw materials to reduce costs. The spoiled peanuts contain aflatoxin. Moreover, such processed products are much more difficult to identify than moldy peanuts.

Small workshop self-pressing oil

If some oil crops such as peanuts and corn become moldy during storage, aflatoxin may be present in the extracted oil.

Some peanuts appear normal on the outside, but aflatoxin has appeared inside. The presses used in small workshops or household oil presses are simple in technology and lack the process to remove harmful substances, so they cannot refine the raw materials.

2. Benzopyrene: can induce many types of cancer!

High temperature fried foods

Repeated use of high-temperature vegetable oils, over-frying, and stir-frying of foods will all produce benzopyrene. The content of benzopyrene in burnt foods is 10 to 20 times higher than that in ordinary foods.

Cooking fumes

It has been determined that the fumes produced when cooking oil is heated to 270 degrees Celsius contain compounds such as benzopyrene.

Wrong way: put the food in the pan after the oil starts to smoke! After frying a dish, continue frying without cleaning the pan! Both of these methods are likely to produce benzopyrene.

Smoked food

The charcoal used for smoking and grilling contains a small amount of benzopyrene, which may enter the food along with the smoke at high temperatures. On the other hand, the incomplete combustion of sugar and fat contained in the smoked fish or meat itself can also produce benzopyrene.

Hanging Oven Roast Duck

When making roast duck in the "hanging oven" method, on the one hand, the combustion of the fruit wood itself will produce some benzopyrene; on the other hand, the oil produced by the high temperature of the duck meat drips onto the fire, and these fats undergo thermal decomposition or thermal polymerization reactions under high temperature, also producing benzopyrene, which then rises with the smoke and attaches to the roast duck.

Ink

Ink contains carbon black, which contains several carcinogenic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, especially benzopyrene. When the ink on some food packaging paper is not dry, it will directly contaminate the food. Many people like to use newspapers to wrap strawberries, cabbages, etc. to keep them fresh, which makes it easier to come into contact with benzopyrene.

Car exhaust

Don't exercise or walk on the road in the morning because car exhaust contains more benzopyrene.

3. Nitrite: Toxic and indirectly carcinogenic!

Nitrite itself is not carcinogenic, but once it enters the body it will combine with protein degradation products in the stomach to form carcinogenic nitrosamines.

Nitrates and nitrites are only one letter apart, but the former are non-toxic, while the latter are toxic in large quantities. It is fine to take a few hundred milligrams of nitrates at a time, but there is a risk of poisoning if you take 200 milligrams of nitrites at a time.

Cooked meats

Nitrite is a food additive permitted for use in various countries and is mainly used in meat products.

It can make the flesh color more red and more pleasing to the eye.

The products of regular meat processing factories are safe. The amount of nitrite added is controlled and there is also inspection and management by national departments.

But you must be very careful with products from small workshops, restaurants, and farmers' markets.

Overnight dishes

When vegetables are eaten, they are repeatedly tossed by several pairs of chopsticks, which has already fully inoculated bacteria. Even if the leftovers are placed in the refrigerator after eating, bacteria will slowly grow. The longer they are stored, the more nitrites are produced.

Pickles

It is necessary to know a general rule: the nitrite content in pickled vegetables is highest in the first one or two weeks, and the content is very low after 20-30 days.

Clinically, patients who suffer from pickled vegetable poisoning generally eat "explosive pickled vegetables", that is, vegetables that are pickled for a very short time.

Salad

Although cold dishes still look fresh and crisp after a few days, after one or two days, the nitrite content in them is higher than that of leftovers.

Hot Pot Soup

Experimental measurements have shown that the amount of nitrite in hot pot soup is not enough to cause acute poisoning in most people, but the amino acid and amine content is relatively high. Under heating conditions, it is very likely to combine with nitrite to form nitrosamine carcinogens. The risk of inducing cancer cannot be underestimated if consumed frequently.

4. Formaldehyde: carcinogenic and teratogenic!

Some jeans, children's clothing, etc.

There are four main types of textiles that are likely to cause formaldehyde to exceed the standard:

First, non-ironing clothing;

The second is jeans with different shades of color;

The third is children's clothing;

Fourth, clothing stored in new and old artificial board furniture

Car mats

It is recommended not to use the newly bought car mats immediately. You should dry them in the sun first to accelerate the volatilization of organic matter. If you feel that the irritating odor of the mats is strong, replace them in time.

Joint glue in decoration

An experiment on long-term formaldehyde release shows that no matter how good the materials you buy are, as long as the decorators use urea-formaldehyde resin glue, formaldehyde may follow you for as long as 14 to 15 years.

Urea-formaldehyde resin glue is the glue used for jointing when decorating a house. It is used for corners and joints of doors, windows, furniture, floors, etc. Many decoration teams choose this kind of glue with strong viscosity but low cost to save costs. The better the viscosity, the higher the formaldehyde content.

Poor quality imitation porcelain tableware

Imitation porcelain tableware is non-toxic at room temperature and has good stability. However, inferior imitation porcelain tableware is produced by directly using urea-formaldehyde resin instead of melamine resin. It is formed by chemical reaction of urea and formaldehyde. This substance is highly toxic, easily soluble in water and releases formaldehyde gas.

5. Nicotine

tobacco!

Survey data from the China Association for Tobacco Control shows that there are 316 million smokers in my country, and 740 million people are exposed to second-hand and third-hand smoke, which has led to an increasing incidence of respiratory diseases and lung cancer.

Do you know what tobacco contains? There are more than 7,000 chemicals, hundreds of harmful substances, and 69 clear carcinogens.

If we develop a smoking index based on each person's smoking habits, the number of cigarettes smoked per day multiplied by the age of smoking. For example, if you smoke 20 cigarettes a day for more than 20 years, your smoking index is 400. Smokers with a smoking index of more than 400 are at high risk of lung cancer. In recent years, the incidence of lung adenocarcinoma in non-smoking women has also increased. Because of long-term exposure to second-hand and third-hand smoke, they have also become a high-risk group for lung cancer.

If you smoke for a long time, the harmful substances in the smoke will repeatedly stimulate the bronchial mucosa or glands, causing the incidence of lung cancer to become higher and higher. It can be seen that there is a close correlation between the amount of smoking and lung cancer. The younger the age at which you start smoking, the longer you smoke, and the more you smoke, the higher the incidence of lung cancer.