By Owen Jones
Most of us are scared stiff of developing cancer. That is quite understandable - who wants to spend a couple of years undergoing chemotherapy only to die a couple of years later? Or even if you recover it is a couple of years out of your life that have been worrying and grueling. And not merely for the patient but for friends and family too.
So, individuals do everything they can to reduce the risks of developing cancer. Most of us do not think we know how to do this, others are not certain, but they have heard or read something that sounds 'about correct' and others are convinced that they know how to avoid developing cancer.
My wife is certain that I may get cancer from eating burnt toast and others are convinced that they can stave off cancer by saturating their body with green tea. It has frequently been pointed out and for decades as well, that countries where green tea is the norm, say the Far East, have a much lower incidence of cancer than we do in the West.
And this is probably a fact at the moment. But why is it true? I live in Asia and diabetes is the number one killer near me. Do Asians not get cancer as much as we do because they drink green tea or for other reasons?
In fact, where I live in Northern Thailand, I have never seen anyone drink tea or coffee or accept a cup off me, except my wife. Villagers here drink water or alcohol, depending on the time of day. Kids love Cola or Sprite or whatever because they watch as well much TV, but drink a lot of water.
It is stated that green tea is an anti-oxidant and it is alleged that anti-oxidants help eliminate free radicals which can cause cancer. If this is true, then the claims for green tea are perhaps more believable.
However, the claims are so all-encompassing that it makes me sceptical. I am reading a report just now that claims that green tea will prevent the growth of cancerous cells in the: "... aesophagus, bladder, on the skin, in the ovaries, the pancreas and the prostate".
That is a very tall order indeed.
The difficulty for me with all these claims is that they are not substantiated - there are no references that you can follow that do not lead to companies selling green tea. This is a difficulty.
Some will say that the government or the pharmaceutical companies are suppressing the knowledge because they want to sell more expensive drugs - and this might be true - grist to the mill for conspiracy theorists and retailers of Chinese tea.
Now that we appear to be entering into a 'new era', a more sceptical and more progressive era (thanks a great deal to the World Wide Web), couldn't someone do some investigation on green tea and Acai berries and all the rest of the stuff you read about in your junk emails and put an end once and for all to the false dreams, if that is what they are, that we are being sold every day by unscrupulous advertisers looking for a quick dollar?
Most of us are scared stiff of developing cancer. That is quite understandable - who wants to spend a couple of years undergoing chemotherapy only to die a couple of years later? Or even if you recover it is a couple of years out of your life that have been worrying and grueling. And not merely for the patient but for friends and family too.
So, individuals do everything they can to reduce the risks of developing cancer. Most of us do not think we know how to do this, others are not certain, but they have heard or read something that sounds 'about correct' and others are convinced that they know how to avoid developing cancer.
My wife is certain that I may get cancer from eating burnt toast and others are convinced that they can stave off cancer by saturating their body with green tea. It has frequently been pointed out and for decades as well, that countries where green tea is the norm, say the Far East, have a much lower incidence of cancer than we do in the West.
And this is probably a fact at the moment. But why is it true? I live in Asia and diabetes is the number one killer near me. Do Asians not get cancer as much as we do because they drink green tea or for other reasons?
In fact, where I live in Northern Thailand, I have never seen anyone drink tea or coffee or accept a cup off me, except my wife. Villagers here drink water or alcohol, depending on the time of day. Kids love Cola or Sprite or whatever because they watch as well much TV, but drink a lot of water.
It is stated that green tea is an anti-oxidant and it is alleged that anti-oxidants help eliminate free radicals which can cause cancer. If this is true, then the claims for green tea are perhaps more believable.
However, the claims are so all-encompassing that it makes me sceptical. I am reading a report just now that claims that green tea will prevent the growth of cancerous cells in the: "... aesophagus, bladder, on the skin, in the ovaries, the pancreas and the prostate".
That is a very tall order indeed.
The difficulty for me with all these claims is that they are not substantiated - there are no references that you can follow that do not lead to companies selling green tea. This is a difficulty.
Some will say that the government or the pharmaceutical companies are suppressing the knowledge because they want to sell more expensive drugs - and this might be true - grist to the mill for conspiracy theorists and retailers of Chinese tea.
Now that we appear to be entering into a 'new era', a more sceptical and more progressive era (thanks a great deal to the World Wide Web), couldn't someone do some investigation on green tea and Acai berries and all the rest of the stuff you read about in your junk emails and put an end once and for all to the false dreams, if that is what they are, that we are being sold every day by unscrupulous advertisers looking for a quick dollar?
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