On September 10, 2022, Fu Song, a singer who participated in the debut of Happy Boys, died of oral cancer at the age of 36. During his lifetime, he showed his left face that he had to "cut off" because he was addicted to betel nut and suffered from oral cancer, and persuaded netizens to say:
"I just want to tell you from my experience,
Betel nut is really terrible.
Even if one person listens,
I am satisfied, too. "
His friend also sent a message to mourn:
"May he be in another world,
No more betel nuts,
No pain, no cancer. "
The full text is 5620 words, and it is expected to be read for 10 minutes.
introduction
Looking back, betel nut has been pushed to the wave of public opinion many times, and within a week after the death of singer Fu Song, the attention of betel nut has reached the highest level in ten years.
As early as 2003, betel nut has been recognized by the WHO International Center for Research on Cancer (IARC) asA class of carcinogensHowever, there are still nearly 100 billion industries and tens of millions of betel nut consumers in China.
On the one hand, it is"Carcinogenic killer"On the other hand, it is well-known"Snacks", who is the sugar-coated betel nut shell, and who put betel nut on the shelf within reach of consumers?
To understand the reasons, but alsoStart from the beginning.
Past lives of betel nut
Areca catechu is an evergreen plant of Areca in Palmae, and its fresh fruit is oblong or ovoid.
The history of human chewing betel nut can be traced back to prehistoric times. According to archaeological findings and carbon dating, it can be inferred that the earliest conclusive evidence of chewing betel nut comes from a Neolithic human relic in Duyangdong, Philippines.
In China, betel nut had a long evolution process after it entered the vision of Chinese ancestors in the late Qin Dynasty and early Han Dynasty.It is generally believed that the earliest written record of betel nut in China comes from Sima Xiangru’s Shang Lin Fu:"Leave the evil spirits behind, and be benevolent and frequent, and bury Tan Mulan."Among them, the kernel frequency is betel nut.
Areca catechu was both a food and a medicinal material in ancient China, which means "medicine and food are homologous" in traditional Chinese medicine. In the early Han culture in the Central Plains, betel nut mainly appeared as a medicinal material. It was mentioned that betel nut has the functions of lowering qi, eliminating valley, removing phlegm, killing insects and treating beriberi in the ancient books such as Yaolu, Elbow Emergency Prescription and Qimin Yaoshu.By the Six Dynasties, betel nut had become a common Chinese medicine.
The food custom of betel nut has a long history, generally eating dried fruit in the north and fresh fruit in the south. It was first popular among royal families, nobles and scholars in the south. In the Tang Dynasty, the custom of eating betel nut further developed, and it spread from scholars to Shu Ren and from Lingnan to other provinces in the Song Dynasty. The habit of being addicted to eat areca rose to a fashionable high consumption in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and there was even a record that "scholar-officials often indulged in it".Areca catechu played a certain role in the medical culture, marriage custom culture and religious culture of ancient China.
The early areas with the habit of taking betel nuts were concentrated in Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and Taiwan Province, which were mainly the areas where betel nuts were produced or near the producing areas.In Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, which is famous for its betel nut industry, the popularity of betel nut can be traced back to the Qing Dynasty.The migration tide of "Jiangxi fills in Huguang" made Jiangxi drug dealers move to Hunan Province, creating market conditions for the circulation of medicinal materials including betel nut; After the closed door made Guangzhou the only trading port, inter-provincial trade promoted the formation of Xiangtan’s trade center and created transportation conditions for the spread of betel nut. Xiangtan City, which was built with the help of natural waterways, is "the richest in Hunan Province", and betel nut also has a wide consumer market there.
From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, the spread and promotion of betel nut was weakened by political, economic, cultural and social factors.After the middle and late 20th century, the country gradually became stable, and the betel nut industry gradually found a broad market again.
Based on years of exploration, the betel nut enterprises in Xiangtan City, Hunan Province have formed a new set of betel nut production methods: selecting fresh fruit → cleaning → drying → germinating seeds → baking seeds → gluing → sealing → putting on fragrance → cutting seeds → bittern → drying → packaging.Drying fresh fruits greatly increases the storage time of betel nuts and is also conducive to the spread to the whole country.After 1990s, some betel nut enterprises in Xiangtan completed the preliminary market competition, accumulated certain capital, and successfully expanded to the whole country with the help of the spread of Huxiang media culture and the support of the government.Now the betel nut industry has formed a pattern of "planting in Hainan Province, processing in Hunan Province, consumption in Hunan Province and spreading to the whole country".
The "sin" of betel nut
"Hanging hands, walking on the street, chewing betel nuts and making friends."Nowadays, betel nut has been deeply embedded in the lives of Hunan people. Betel nut is indispensable in social occasions such as dinners, weddings and funerals, festivals and birthday banquets. Gradually,"Betel nut with wine is immortal" and "Betel nut with cigarettes is boundless"Such words have also become popular throughout the country.
While the betel nut industry is in full swing throughout the country, a terrible cancer has also spread-Oral cancer.
In February 2022, the National Cancer Center released the latest issue of national cancer statistics: in the statistical coverage380 million peopleMedium and new hair4.064 millionCancer cases, including52,000Cases of oral cancer,25,800Death case. In recent years, the morbidity and mortality of oral cavity have increased year by year, and the burden has continued to increase, and the 5-year survival rate has remained at50％Around, seriously threatening the lives and health of our residents. Moreover, from 1990 to 2019, the incidence and mortality of oral cancer in China showed an upward trend, which was higher than the global level.
Chewing betel nut is one of the main risk factors for oral cancer. Fresh betel nuts are usually chewed with betel leaves wrapped in hydrated lime. The safrole in betel leaves is itself a carcinogen, andslaked limeStimulation of oral mucosa will cause chronic inflammation of mucosa and even oral cancer; Among the most common dry betel nuts, betel nuts come with them.Arecoline, areca tannin, areca specific nitrosamines, reactive oxygen species.They are all important carcinogens with cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. Moreover, the texture of dried areca nut is hard, and the repeated rubbing of areca nut fiber on the oral cavity will form local inflammation and even lead to precancerous lesions.
People in charge of health and welfare departments in Taiwan Province have said that people who smoke and chew betel nuts have a higher risk of oral cancer than the average person; A paper published in Chinese Journal of Medical Stomatology also shows that from 2006 to 2016, some hospitals in Changsha received11182 casesAmong the cases of oral cancer, it is speculated that there are8222 casesIt is related to betel nut.
The incidence of oral cancer also has obvious regional characteristics, which may be related to some bad living habits and genetic susceptibility of Chinese residents.Hainan province, Hunan province, Guangdong province, Yunnan province, Taiwan Province area.Residents in other places have followed the habit of chewing betel nuts. Half of the top ten areas of oral cancer incidence in China are in Hunan Province, and Hunan Province has13,245Betel nut enterprises rank first in the country; Hainan province has6152 JiaBetel nut enterprises rank second in the country.
Lingshui Li Autonomous County, which has the highest incidence of oral cancer in China, is also in Hainan Province.21.60/100,000.
On a global scale, Oceania’sPapua New Guinea and Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka in Asia.Other countries have the habit of chewing betel nut, and the incidence and mortality of oral cancer in these four countries are bothFar more thanThe average level of the world, they also occupy four of the top ten countries in the global incidence of oral cancer.
In fact, betel nut, as a Chinese herbal medicine, is not contradictory to the fact that betel nut causes oral cancer. It is a three-point poison, even though it is a medicinal material, it is chewed as a snack.Toxicity is far greater than efficacy..
In our country, most patients suffering from oral cancer due to betel nut have suffered from face cutting."torture"Yan Xinchun, a professor of oral and maxillofacial surgery at Xiangya Medical College of Central South University, once said in an interview with the media:"A person who has oral cancer destroys a family."Without treatment and intervention, patients with oral cancer will be at risk of losing their lives if the cancer spreads in three or five years. But if the cancerous site is removed for the spread of cancer,The patient will become a "face cutter",
"His teeth were cut off,
Jaw was cut off,
The surface shape has changed,
The psychological influence is very great,
And I can’t speak clearly,
The chewing function is gone,
Then there’s malnutrition,
The labor force is lost. "
The picture is from Beijing Morning, 20130715.
Betel nut and consumers’ "love and hate"
Since betel nut is so dangerous,
Why do so many people chew every day?
A survey of scholar Cao Yu
It shows people’s different cognition about betel nut.
About learning about betel nut for the first timeAge and occasionProblems, Hunan Province, Hainan Province, Yunnan Province, Taiwan Province area, the population of these four provinces and the population outside these four provinces have great regional differences.
People in these four provinces live in a social environment where chewing betel nut is common, and most of them know betel nut because people around them chew it, and most of the respondents in Hunan Province know betel nut when they are children. Respondents in other areas are more influenced by the media and know betel nut, and the age when they first met betel nut is obviously later.
At the same time, there are far more respondents who think betel nut is a specialty of Hunan province than those who think it is a specialty of Hainan province and Taiwan Province region. This is because mainland residents will have more opportunities to get in touch with people in Hunan province who chew betel nut in their daily lives than people in Hainan or Taiwan Province. After all, the combined population of Hainan province and Taiwan Province area is far less than that of Hunan province. This makes Hunan Province not produce fresh betel nuts, but it is often mistaken for the "hometown" of betel nuts. More than half of the respondents chose"Addiction", "chewing hobby" and "carcinogen"It shows that most people have realized the addiction and carcinogenicity of betel nut, but there are still quite a few people.not familiar withThe harm of betel nut.
We also crawled thousands of buyer’s comments on several kinds of betel nut products with the highest sales volume in JD.COM. After word frequency analysis, we found that:"Taste", "Delicious" and "Taste"And so on are high-frequency words, indicating that consumers regard betel nut as a "snack" when buying it, and"Second time", "Third time" and "As always"It also often appears, indicating that many consumers are developing or have developed.Long-term consumptionThe habit of betel nut.
Penalization of betel nut
The link between betel nut and consumers is always indispensable.Attractive advertisement. For the local people, the brand of Areca catechu has carried out advertising in TV programs, subways, bus platforms, elevators and corridors in Hunan Province.Is a familiar thing.. However, in 2019, Hunan Areca Food Industry Association issued a document prohibiting any form of advertising to its member units. Influenced by this document, Taste King, who sponsored Hunan Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala for many years, gave up the sponsorship of the 2020 Spring Festival Gala.
However, due to the fact that the measures taken by Hunan Areca Food Industry Association have no legally binding effect, the influence of the above documents is weakening day by day after a few months. After a short period of dormancy, Zhang Xinfa, Taste King and other head betel nut enterprises made a comeback. Relevant advertisements appear in public view from time to time, and the advertising words in them all emphasize the beautification and publicity of the taste and function of betel nut, such as some popular variety shows."It’s better to have Lycium barbarum, so that you can vomit more fiercely." "How can something so happy as dancing make you tired and press the pause button? To pack a refreshing taste king …"
However, these sponsorships have not been appreciated by everyone, but have also met with opposition. For example, the TV series "Sweeping the Black Storm" broadcast in 2021 was criticized by the majority of netizens because of the picture of the characters chewing betel nuts in the play, and even asked to cut the scene.
With more and more people suffering from oral cancer due to betel nut,On September 17, 2021, the State Administration of Radio and Television issued a notice: From now on, it will stop using radio and television and online audio-visual programs to promote betel nut and its products.. After the ban was issued, almost all programs have deleted the implanted advertisements or mosaic them, and betel nut has basically disappeared from all kinds of programs in 2022.
In addition to the regulations prohibiting betel nut advertising, the relevant regulations on fasting betel nut are gradually increasing. The earliest prohibition of betel nut was the "Regulations on the Prohibition of the Production, Sale and Use of Betel Nut in Xiamen" promulgated by Xiamen Municipal People’s Government in 1996. By 2020, the State Administration of Market Supervision issued a new version of the Catalogue of Food Production Licenses, which cancelled the category of "edible betel nut", and betel nut was no longer used as food management, nor could it issue a Food Production License.Betel nut as a food production license and supervision lacks the necessary basis, and the food betel nut industry began to be "untenable" at the policy level.
Food or medicine? Where will betel nut go?
Judging from the current situation, betel nut is facing the dilemma of embarrassing identity.
On the one hand, it has high medical value since ancient times, and now it has been listed in People’s Republic of China (PRC) Pharmacopoeia as a Chinese herbal medicine. Moreover, in the "Notice on Printing and Distributing novel coronavirus’s Diagnosis and Treatment Plan (Trial Ninth Edition)" published by the State Council, betel nut was also clearly listed as a prescription for Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment.
On the other hand, it is not included in the list of homology of medicine and food, and it is also one of the culprits of oral cancer, which leads to the tragedy that many patients become "face-cutters". At the same time, betel nut, as a food, is generally considered to have a market of nearly 100 billion yuan. In recent years, the increasing planting area of betel nut has promoted the development of betel nut industry in Hainan Province and Hunan Province, and made great contributions to the local economic development.
Areca nut planting area in Hainan province in 2020124,900Hectares, accounting for the whole country.95%About the output of betel nut dried fruit278,000Tons, the output value exceeds28 billion yuan. For Hainong, betel nut is a real "cash cow". According to a set of data from Hainan Daily, by the end of 2019, the betel nut planting area in Hainan Province reached 1.78 million mu (about 118,700 hectares), accounting for the agricultural population of the province.41.37% of 2.3 millionAn important source of income for farmers.
In the constant controversy, Hainan Province, as a major betel nut planting province, and Hunan Province, as a major betel nut processing and sales province, are all looking for a way out for betel nut industry. Hainan Provincial Market Supervision Bureau has made it clear that the production field will not be allowed since February 1, 2022.By foodProduction and labeling, and labeling of food use is prohibited; Since April 1, 2022, the circulation field can no longer be sold.Food labelingBetel nut products. Before March, 2022, Hunan Province extended the validity period of the Food Production License of some betel nut enterprises for one year. After March, Hunan Province suspended the extension of the production license of betel nut enterprises "because relevant people filed a lawsuit against the production license of betel nut", striving to determine the positioning of betel nut as a "local characteristic product" through local legislation and promote the inclusion of betel nut in the "medicine and food homology" catalogue.
Southern Weekend reported that a betel nut distributor who has been in business for more than ten years said, "Betel nut (industry) is spiraling up, and every storm will experience a decline, but the decline is actually storing energy, and then it will usher in a new round of development." He also revealed that betel nuts have been sold out of stock in some places.
Betel nut may be a cash cow for the local economy, but it is harmful to thousands of consumers in Qian Qian who regard it as a "snack". For the sake of quality of life and health, we should try to quit betel nut. After all, no one wants the tragedy of face cutting caused by betel nut to happen to themselves, their family and friends, as described in "Face Cutters in the Kingdom of Betel Nuts"-
"They had their tongues cut off,
They had their gums removed,
A ferocious surgical scar
Tear their faces,
The bad news of cancer declared death …
They were all obsessed with betel nuts.
And firmly believe that it is the black fruit,
Take them into the abyss of illness. "
Data source and editor’s note:
1. The illustration of an interview with Tan Yueqiang, a patient with oral cancer, comes from the July 15th, 2013 issue of Good Morning in Beijing.
https://news.cctv.com/2013/07/15/VIDE1373850011381935.shtml
2. Enterprise investigation
https://www.qcc.com/
3、Rongshou Zheng,etc.Cancer incidence and mortality in China,2016.Journal of the National Cancer Center.2022; 02(01):01-09
4. Gu Jianchang, Song Jiwu, Liu Yun, Hui Rongrong, Liu Yunxia. Analysis of the burden of oral cancer and its changing trend in China from 1990 to 2019 [J]. Chinese Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2022,23(06):457-461.
5、Hu YJ,etc.Trend Analysis of Betel Nut-associated Oral Cancer and Health Burden in China. Chin J Dent Res. 2017; 20(2):69-78.
6. He Jie. Annual Report on Cancer Registration in China in 2018 [M]. Beijing: People’s Medical Publishing House.
7. Cao Yu. Chewing for two thousand years [M]. Beijing: CITIC Publishing House, 2022:219-244.
8. World Cancer Research Fund International official website
https://www.wcrf.org
9. World Life Expertise official website
https://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com
10. Hainan Provincial Bureau of Statistics
http://stats.hainan.gov.cn/tjj/index.html
11. Hainan Daily-Digital Report of Hainan Daily-Development of the whole industrial chain, Areca catechu in Hainan Province becomes a "golden fruit" http://hnrb.hinews.cn/html/2020-10/19/content _ 58464 _ 12502246.htm.
References:
1, Zhang enxun, Shen Lingling. miasma, plague and addiction: the spread and reconstruction of betel nut food custom in local social changes [J]. Folklore Research, 2021(01):89-104+158
2. Gu Jianchang, Song Jiwu, Liu Yun, Hui Rongrong, Liu Yunxia. Analysis of the burden of oral cancer and its changing trend in China from 1990 to 2019 [J]. Chinese Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2022,23(06):457-461.
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http://hnrb.hinews.cn/html/202010/19/content_58464_12502246.htm
7. read "betel nuts that more than 100 million people are buying, why should they be banned?" 》
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/F5kei9CL1o1qQW1V9ry5gg
8. China Net "Standardize and supervise betel nut products in many places: not to be sold according to food, not simply to be removed from the shelves"
http://food.china.com.cn/202209/23/content_78434546.htm
9. Observer Network "Hunan Province: Strive to determine betel nut as a" local characteristic product "through local legislation" https://www.guancha.cn/politics/2021_08_30_604988.shtml
10. Zhongxin. com’s "Hainan Province, the largest betel nut planting area in China, benefited from soaring market and doubled farmers’ income"
http://www.hi.chinanews.com.cn/hnnew/2021-03-14/570550.html
11. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs’ Reply to the Proposal No.01480 (No.120 on Agriculture and Water Conservancy) of the Fifth Session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
http://www.moa.gov.cn/govpublic/NKJ/202209/t20220901_6408381.htm
Author: School of Journalism and Information Communication, Huazhong University of Science and Technology Mei Xuefei Peng Meiqian Shu Yan Zhang Ziliang
Instructor: Xu Di, School of Journalism and Information Communication, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
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