Beware of drinks that contain 4-methylimidazole - a cancer aiding substance

The hazard symbol for carcinogenic chemicals in the GHS 

Pepsi Cola, Coco Cola are the two most famous brands in Pakistan for years and are the best selling drinks, specially among the youth.

However, recently both Coca Cola and Pepsi have decided to alter their formula for their famous drinks as the previous formula contains an amount of 4-methylimidazole, a chemical which California has added to its list of carcinogens. Wikipedia defines carcinogen as any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that is an agent directly involved in causing cancer. This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes.

In order to abide by the laws of the California state of the USA, therefore, both Coca-Cola and Pepsi are changing the recipes for their drinks to avoid putting a cancer warning label on the bottle and changing over the new formula of caramel colouring which now has less amount of 4-methylimidazole.

The change to the new formula has already been introduced in California. And both companies have claimed that rolling out the new recipe across the US makes the drinks more efficient to manufacture.

4-methylimidazole has been linked to cancer in mice and rats, according to one study, but there is no evidence that it poses a health risk to humans, said the American Beverage Association, which represents the wider industry. The US Food and Drug Administration claims a person would need to drink 1,000 cans of Coke or Pepsi to take in the same dose of the chemical that was given to the animals in the lab test.

While the US consumers have started getting the revised formula drinks, it may take rather long when drinks with the same formula will be available in Pakistan and other countries. So we need to be careful consuming large quantities of these drinks till we get the revised formula introduced in our country as well.  

Source: BBC USA & Canada

Reference on Carcinogen:  Wikipedia

GHS insignia: Wikipedia

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October - The Breast Cancer awareness Month

This is a public service awareness message

Breast Cancer was once considered to be a deadliest form of cancers – something that women dreaded. The disease took a heavy toll of countless women but they also in a way contributed to the research on the subject and its cure. Thanks to those brave women and the researchers and doctors that medicines and treatment methods are now available to get rid of this disease in a majority of cases. Now the chances of women surviving from breast cancer are as high as 75% as compared to just 25% half a decade ago.

As per a rough estimate, some 46,000 women are subjected to breast cancer. Thanks to the awareness to this disease by the world media, efforts are at hand to communicate to the world the implications of the disease, the risks involved, and the trauma a patient has to undergo after the operation and its social impact. All over the world, there are fund raising campaigns to help spread the message of its awareness, carry out further R&D for its painless cure and support.

The most common type of breast cancer is called al carcinoma in situ or DCIS. In DCIS, Cancer cells are present in either the lining of a breast lobule or a duct, but they have not spread to surrounding fatty tissue. If women carryout their physical examination periodically, the symptoms of breast cancer can be spotted and there are good chances to arrest the spread of the disease. When breast cancer is detected early and treated promptly, suffering and ultimately the loss of life can be significantly reduced. For early stage breast cancer, there are more treatment options, treatment can be less disfiguring and less toxic and survival is improved.

Women have to remember that every woman has some risk of breast cancer. The majority of women who get breast cancer have no family history and no identifiable risk factors. The risk for women of getting it in their lifetime is about 1 in 8. For the time being, breast cancer is considered non-preventable, as its causes remain unknown. While there are medicines and therapies available to reduce it, it cannot be eliminated altogether.

So beware of this deadly disease, read more about it and spread the message not to alarm but to better prepare one to diagnose its occurrence at very early stage so that its effects could be reduced and the spread of disease arrested before it become deathly.

Subscribe to Pink Ribbon Pakistan in its efforts to create awareness for a healthy future.

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