Suya does not cause cancer butthe red pepper sprinkle on it ..

Laying to rest the controversy whether Nigeria’s favourite barbecue, Suya, causes cancer, the Commissioner for Health, Ondo State, Dr. Dayo Adeyanju, has stated that what is more likely to cause cancer in the barbecue is the red pepper sprayed on the meat.

 He said the particular pepper used, according to some researches, suggests that it contains certain chemicals, which when added to the grilled meat, tends to provoke carcinogenesis, leading to gastric cancer.
 He said with the notoriety the scourge was gaining in the country, it was important that people were aware of what to do and things to avoid in other to prevent it.
 “For a developing nation like ours, where there are no adequate facilities to manage the scourge, what we must do is to take cancer prevention seriously, and that is why Nigerians should take conscious efforts to shun foods and lifestyles that predisposes them to cancer.
 “While shunning foods and lifestyles that causes cancer, we should not ignore the fact that routine screening can go a long way in preventing the disease. For people who have done cancer screening before hand, if there are traces of pre-cancer cells, it would be detected and removed before it starts taking shape,” he noted.
 He said it was also important that people with history of cancer in their families engage in routine cancer screening, adding that early detection was a major solution against the scourge.
 “For women, self examination for breast cancer is key to preventing it. We know how common this type of cancer is among Nigerian women, but if self examination habit is imbibed, it wont be as common as it presently is,” Adeyanju noted.
 He also explained that when food stays for a long time in the gastric intestinal tract, it could predispose one to cancer. “Exercise and some types of food helps in gastric motility. When food stay for so long in the body, some certain radicals will be produced which may cause cancer. It is a bad manner for someone to stay for days without using the toilet. Such people must take plenty of fruits, vegetable, water, as well as exercise, so that they can flush their system and sweat out. “We need to begin to educate our people on salient issues like this because poverty of knowledge is our major challenge in tackling some preventable health challenges in this country.”
 He decried the level of awareness on the prevention of the scourge in the country, adding that education on the real preventive steps against the disease should go beyond the job of health professionals, “we should leverage on technology to bring this awareness to the citizens,” he stressed.