A healthy diet, informed by smart choices is vital in determining one's health. People should know where the food comes from and how it is grown. Picture: BT file
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
SMOKING, obesity and poor diet are some of the worrying lifestyle trends that lead to higher risk of cancer, said Dr Hj Mohd Syafiq Abdullah, Specialist Oncologist at the National Cancer Center.
“Obesity and cancer are partners. You don’t need to conduct an experiment to see that what we are eating is having a detrimental affect on our health,” he said in an interview with The Brunei Times last week.
Dr Hj Mohd Syafiq said that breast, endometrial, colon, liver, pancreatic cancers have all been linked to obesity. “Women who are obese have higher levels of estrogen in their body which can lead to breast tumors and cancer,” he said, explaining that fat tissue is a secondary source of estrogen production after the ovaries.
Research from the National Cancer Institute in the USA found that estrogen levels in postmenopausal women are 50 to 100 per cent higher in heavy women than lean women.
A staggering 59.8 per cent of people aged 15 and over are overweight in Brunei, according to recent estimates from the World Health Organisation (WHO). Brunei was also ranked 44 in the world’s list of countries with the greatest percentage of overweight people.
A perennial scourge – smoking – is leading cause of preventable cancer deaths in the Sultanate and costs the Ministry of Health millions every year to treat people with smoking-related illness such as lung and esophageal cancer, bronchitis, emphysema and heart disease.
” What is worrying is the rising prevalence of smoking among women. There is an increasing trend of tobacco use in women and girls.”
The disease has become the second most prevalent cancer among Bruneian women after breast cancer.
A report published in February 2009 by The Collaborative Funding Program for Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Research, claims “the single most important factor may be the rise in spending power among girls and women, which is making cigarettes more affordable. Social and cultural norms that have traditionally prevented women in many countries from smoking are weakening.”
A healthy diet, informed by smart choices is vital in determining one’s health. People should know where the food comes from and how it is grown, stressed Dr Hj Mohd Syafiq.
“Most of our food is imported from overseas and we don’t really know what goes into it, or in the case of fruit and vegetables, whether pesticides have been used,” he said. “Meat nowadays is also mass produced and treated with hormones which we in turn ingest by eating.”
The oncologist also encouraged Bruneians to grow their own fruit and vegetables in their backyards.
“When our parents and grandparents were growing up, most if the food they ate was organic. It came from their own plot and meat came from animals they reared themselves or from nearby local farms,” he said, commenting that the modern living has definitely had an impact on the increased incidence of cancer deaths in the nation.
For the vast majority of human history, agriculture can be described as organic. Only during the 20th century was a large supply of new synthetic chemicals introduced to the food supply.
“It is not impossible for Brunei to be self-sufficient in food supply since we are a small population. Look how fast we have progressed with rice production since the Laila rice initiative was introduced a few years ago,” said the doctor. “If we grow our own food, we can control the quality and the use of any chemicals in food production.”
“The organic food movement is somewhat overhyped but it does contain an important message that food should be natural and the use of chemicals in food needs to be closely monitored,” said Dr Hj Mohd Syafiq.
When asked about the lack of availability of organic foods in Brunei, the doctor explained that, like any market, the organic food market is consumer-driven, and that if enough people want to buy organic foods, businesses will start supplying them.
“In some local supermarkets like SupaSave you can see organic foods being sold. I don’t think many people are aware of the perceived benefits of eating organic,” he said. “At the end of the day people will make their own choices.”The Brunei Times
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