Lin Qingshun (Professor, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco) has many health rumors on the Internet, especially the diet with carcinogenic doubts is the most concerned (or products with anticancer effects), so it is also the most widely circulated. There are more than 100 cancer-related rumors in my personal website "Scientific Health Preservation". The following articles are selected from the most classic ones, namely "Nine-story Pagoda" and "Hot Drink". Of course, more readers will care about this topic in the future, and they can also visit my website regularly. It is a rumor that nine floors cause cancer. Since June, 2006, an article on the Internet that a nine-story building can cause liver cancer has been circulated. The following are the results of my tracking. The English name of the nine-story tower is Basil, and the scientific name is Ocimum basilicum. With the scientific name, you can search the relevant medical materials in the public medical library. If you add the keyword cancer, you can search for cancer-related information. At present, only five medical papers are engaged in the study of the relationship between the nine-story pagoda and cancer. However, their experiment was to see if the nine-story extract could inhibit the growth of cancer cells in Petri dishes. More importantly, they come to the conclusion that the nine-story building seems to have anti-cancer effect. Then, why does the online article say that nine floors can cause cancer? The following three points are copied from this online rumor: "There is an ingredient in the nine-story tower called eugenol (English translation is eugenol powder, a chemical used in dentistry to treat toothache), which has been proved to cause liver cancer. The Chinese name of eugenol is "safrole". To know that this toxin will accumulate in the body, the cancer index of China people is increasing year by year, which is related to the food they eat. This article first said that the translation of eugenol is clove powder, and then safrole (bull's head is not horse's mouth, a typical online rumor). However, in fact, both translations are wrong. The correct translation of eugenol is eugenol or eugenol (this phenol is not another powder). Anyway, is eugenol really proved to cause liver cancer? Using eugenol and cancer as keywords in public medical library, 220 papers will be found. However, after reading several articles, it will be found that the real concern is not eugenol, but methyl eugenol. It can be seen from a document published by the World Health Organization on 20 13 that the so-called nine-story carcinogen is methyl eugenol, not eugenol. More importantly, the carcinogenicity of methyl eugenol was tested in mice, and its dose was several hundred times of the usual intake. I think, unless someone eats the nine-story pagoda as a green vegetable every day, it is really not easy to eat it and cause cancer. Also, the online article "This toxin will accumulate in the body" is not correct. In fact, the intake of methyl eugenol will soon be discharged from the urine without accumulation. Therefore, the "confirmation" mentioned in the online article will lead to liver cancer, but it was completely proved by me to be nonsense. 2065438+June 2006, both Chinese and English media were talking about the carcinogenicity of hot drinks, which were reprinted wildly on Facebook, and there were cries one after another. But how many people have read the original? Not to mention how many people can understand this. The original text was published in The Lancet Oncology, which is a medical journal with great weight, but it is not a research report, and its orientation is "news". The authors of the signed news are ten experts who released the news on behalf of a "working group" composed of 23 scientists invited by the International Agency for Research on Cancer. The task of the working group is to evaluate the carcinogenicity of coffee, yerba mate (a popular drink in South America) and "very hot drinks". The evaluation concluded that coffee and yerba mate are not carcinogenic by themselves. However, if you drink it at high temperature, it may cause cancer. Here, the cancer referred to by "carcinogenicity" is only esophageal cancer. The judgment of "possible carcinogenicity" is based on "limited evidence". Limited evidence comes from two aspects: human investigation and animal experiments. Human survey asks: Do you drink hot, warm or cold? In other words, there is no real temperature data. In fact, if someone asks you, "What's the temperature of your tea? ",can you answer it? So, what about animal experiments? There are two reports, one is to fill rats with 65-degree water, and the other is to fill rats with 70-degree water, both of which contain carcinogenic chemicals. In other words, both studies are testing whether high temperature will promote carcinogenicity of carcinogens. Excuse me, have you added carcinogens to the hot water, tea or coffee you drink? Unfortunately, the news media and the Internet have almost become "drinks above 65 degrees will cause cancer. "Also, please note that both animal experiments use pipes to pour hot water directly into the esophagus of mice. Excuse me, do you drink hot drinks like this? These two experiments completely ignore that when we drink hot drinks, we decide whether to let the drinks enter the esophagus through the judgment of our lips and mouth. If it is too hot, we will instinctively spit out the drink. In other words, it is impossible for drinks above 65 degrees to enter our esophagus. Therefore, the so-called evidence, first, there is no temperature data in human surveys. Second, animal experiments are not in line with human conditions at all. This kind of news is a good reference, so there is no need to make a fuss. References: 20 16, paper on carcinogenicity of hot drinks, carcinogenicity of drinking coffee, yerba mate and very hot drinks [source] 20 16, carcinogenicity experiment of hot drinks on mice, and recurrent acute fever induced neurocyte hyperproliferative precancerous diseases in mice. [Source] In 2003, hot water induced cancer in rats, and hot water promoted the occurrence of esophageal tumor in F344 rats induced by n- nitrostoluidine. [Source] This article is taken from Pseudoscience at the Dining Table/Lin Qingshun (Professor, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco)/One Heart Culture.