WSU STUDY INVESTIGATES EC MAIZE CANCER EPIDEMIC

The effervescent brew of umqombothi traditional beer and a maize based diet may be the leading causes of Oesophageal cancer in the Eastern Cape Province, according to a Walter Sisulu University research study.

The high prevalence of Oesophageal Cancer in the EC may also be linked to soil contaminated with carcinogens agent.

Oesophageal Cancer is a disease found anywhere in the throat - sometimes called the gullet or food pipe.

Department of human biology Senior lecturer, Prof Eugene Ndebia said Eastern Cape is the hotspot for people suffering from Oesophageal cancer out of all nine provinces in the country.

“There are a lot of causes that have been brought forward for oesophageal cancer in the province. In the 19^th century it is said that there were a lot of factories around as a result, soil became polluted. Farm produce from the soil may be contaminated with carcinogens agent. The other causes brought forward was tobacco and alcohol, but now the main reason we have found out that people with this type of cancer have a diet of higher level of carbohydrates- which is maize”

Because Eastern Cape has the highest percentage of people living below the poverty line especially is the rural outskirts, people have found ways to preserve food by buying it in bulks and storing it so that it lasts them longer.

“Maize on its own is not harmful as long as you buy it and use it within a reasonable time period, the problem is when you have stored it for a while that it starts to develop carcinogens agents which become harmful to the oesophagus. It’s those chemicals that cause cancer, not the maize itself. You can buy maize meal and cook it today, that will be fine, but when you cook from the same bag of maize meal after few weeks, it is no longer the same maize,” said Ndebia.

He also added that they have shown that Fumonisins, a fungal toxin which is carcinogenic is found in maize stored in poor condition for up to four weeks.

“The way we store maize is also important factor, when humidity and temperature is not controlled, this leads to maize contamination with carcinogens. In rural areas the storage of food is usually not in a controlled environment,”  elaborated Ndebia.

Umqombothi is also suggested to be one of the causes of Oesophageal cancer. Umqombothi is a traditional beer made from maize, maize malt, sorghum malt, yeast and water. It is commonly found in South Africa and is drunk by Nguni people.

“In the making of traditional beer they are adding a lot of artificial components as ingredient to make it and those components can be carcinogenic and even the containers they use for beer during the fermentation and storage process have an impact. So the problem is not the maize meal, but how you store it, how long you store it and what you add to it when you are cooking,”  he said.

Ndebia concluded his hypothesis on how the cancer occurs saying that if one’s diet is high on carbohydrate this can increase reflux. Reflux is when the content of the stomach moves back into the oesophagus. One may feel a sour taste in mouth when this happens because naturally the stomach content is acid, so when it moves to the oesophagus the acid burns and you experience heartburn.

“Heartburn is a warning sign to those people to seek help early and avoid becoming sick. Our research has lead us to monitor a rare type of reflux which is not acid, also known as alkaline reflux,” he said.

He further said that surprisingly the Eastern Cape has the highest number of alkaline reflux in the world because it is alkaline, these reflux do not burn the oesophagus, and therefore there is no warning sign. When you have it, it doesn’t burn you because it’s non-acid.

“Research has shown that alkaline refluxes are very carcinogenic as compared to the traditional acid refluxes. This may be why oesophageal cancer patient are usually diagnose at an advanced stage of the disease, because nothing warns them to seek for help early,” concluded Ndebia.

The research has also shown that alkaline reflux is higher in people with a higher consumption of maize as staple diet.

By Anita Roji