Brew: This video is sponsored by The Great Courses Plus. Grill: Chill, we’re out of food again. Chill: We don’t have anything? Grill: Just instant ramen. Chill: Uhh… That’s not really food. Grill: Eh, it’s fine. You know, I wonder what would happen if all you ate was instant noodles? Chill: Shh! Grill, do you hear something? Brew: A boy in Taiwan ate instant noodles every day for 4 years, and this is what happened to his stomach! Today’s episode concerns dietary health, and cancer research. We’ll also be covering some prominent food myths. And with that out of the way, let’s get into it! A Taiwanese university student circa 2018, had developed a habit for staying up late to study. Beginning in middle school, he became known for his long evening study sessions and his grades reflected that. In order to fuel his late night studying, he developed a habit for making quick and easy meals. Specifically, he developed a taste for cheap instant noodles. Grill: I’m already craving some Mint Beef with Egg. Brew: Me too, Mr Hillside’s Instant Noodles got me through my Masters. Grill: Mmmm. Brew: By the time he’d entered university, his instant ramen habit reached a fever pitch, and he was consuming them for almost every meal. Soon, he became ill with nausea, bloating and a stomach ache. His family then took him to the hospital and there, they discovered some horrifying news. He had developed stage 4 stomach cancer, and his chances of survival were slim. After a year of treatment, his battle with gastric cancer ended with the boy passing away. Which left his family with questions, namely, did his instant ramen habit lead to his death. Over the years there have been a myriad of claims concerning the “damage” of instant noodle consumption, but are they worth listening to? When it comes to processed food, there is no shortage of myths and old wive’s tales concerning how bad they are for you, but there are still some who have doubts. News site “Lead Stories” claims that this story is fake news because it appears on a number of different English speaking websites, but with the exact same text copy-pasted over and over. They claim that since none of these articles source the original text, it must be made up. We’ll get back to that but—Is it really possible for instant noodles to give you cancer? Back in 2000, an email chain suggested that wax coatings on the inside of the styrofoam bowls could coat the inside of your stomach. The chain claims that… someone’s... nephew ate cup noodles, and some wax inside the foam bowl coated his stomach. He then quote: “died when he went for an operation to try to remove the layer”. Chill: There was wax in his stomach? EWIE he’s not a candle, he’s a person. Brew: Here, Grill. Read this next claim out for me, will you? Grill: “instant noodles contain wax coating, which is also used in styrofoam containers. That is why instant noodles don’t stick to each other when cooking. Our body needs up to two days to clean the wax. Make sure you stop eating a pack of noodles for at least 3 days after a session of noodles. A session of noodles? This wax can cause CANCER. SHARE if you care!” Brew: Fortunately, according to the fact-checkers over at Snopes, we don’t have much to worry about. First off, they note that styrofoam containers are specifically designed to stand up to heat and contain hot liquids. So adding wax wouldn’t just be redundant, but counterproductive. Adding a wax coating wouldn’t help it stand up to heat, it would simply melt, and ruin the food. But even if there was wax in the container, like those little wax coated paper water cups you get from office water jugs, it wouldn’t cause cancer even if you wanted it to. Chill: No? Brew: No. Again, the fact-checkers over at Snopes note that many foods we regularly consume contain wax, including many candies like Smarties, Peeps, and Candy Corn! Grill: Candy Corn doesn’t cause cancer, it is cancer. Brew: How very… theatrical of you, Grill. But aside from that, unless you have a particularly fragile constitution, like if you have digestive problems, or if you’re an infant, then a little bit of food-grade wax is just going to pass through you. Chill: So wax isn’t bad for you? Brew: It’s not exactly good for you, but it’s not going to give you cancer. It’s just a myth, like many others we’ve debunked. When it comes to learning, you want to make sure that you’re getting clear and nuanced information. That’s why I love resources like The Great Courses Plus, our sponsor of this video. It’s a subscription based lecture streaming service with courses from experts everywhere from National Geographic, to the Smithsonian, to Yale University. They have a vast library of content with over 11,000 videos on subjects like science, literature, history, and how to watch movies better. I just watched “Medical Myths, Lies, and Half-Truths: What We Think We Know May Be Hurting Us” because you know I love to watch pseudoscience clap-backs. Chill: Oh, was that what you were watching the other day? I loved the episode “Medical Myths from around the World”, cuz it actually went into fan deaths from Korea just like we did! Brew: Start your own free trial of The Great Courses Plus today by going to TheGreatCoursesPlus.com/Brew, or by clicking the link in the description box below. Chill: Pssh, Hey it’s like school, but there are no tests! Brew: Who doesn’t like learning? Others claim that the flavour enhancer Monosodium Glutamate, or MSG, is the worst thing about this quick college meal. Not-so-lovingly dubbed the “obesity drug”, and suggests that consuming it can lead to brain damage and headaches. Chill: Oh I know about MSG! It’s like, the bad stuff that’s in takeout right? Brew: Well, you’re half right. MSG is in some kinds of Chinese food served in North America, however MSG exists in fast-food restaurants like KFC and Chick-Fil-A, chips brands like Doritos and Pringles, many different frozen dinners, tons of sauces like salad dressing, and ketchup, and we can’t forget flavour packs in instant noodles too. Fortunately for all of you buffet enthusiasts, most of the literature that linked MSG to headaches has been superseded by newer studies. A literature review by Yoko Obayashi and Yoichi Nagamura for the Journal of Headache and Pain, found that a cause and effect relationship between MSG and headaches was tenuous at best. They saw that most studies that sought to clarify this relationship had little by the way of blind tests. In regards to MSG’s “addictiveness”, and its reputation as an “obesity drug”, any connection between MSG and weight gain is confounded by other environmental factors, and controlled studies found MSG had no effect on body weight in human and animal trials. Chill: So MSG isn’t even really that bad. Brew: It’s not good for you, but it’s not as bad as people think it is. Other sources also claim that since instant ramen sits in your intestines for so long, it prolongs your exposure to “toxic” preservatives. Researchers out of the United States conducted an experiment in which two subjects ate instant ramen, and homemade ramen noodles, to see the difference in the digestive process between the two. The instant ramen took significantly longer than the homemade product, lending credence to fears that preservatives could leak into one’s body. Some take this as proof that the additive TBHQ, or Tertiary butylhydroquinone, is behind any health scares we might see from instant ramen. Manufacturers use this additive in crackers, frozen foods, and allowed in higher concentrations in fish products. According to the Centers for Science in the Public Interest, consumers should avoid TBHQ. They cite a study which found that adding TBHQ to lab rats’ drinking water significantly increased the development of tumors. Grill: So that’s it! Was it TBHQ that caused cancer? Brew: Yes and no. The dosage given to the rats were very high, but the FDA is all over studies like these, and whenever there might be any negative health effects, they’re already thinking about how much is safe to allow in our food. In this case, the FDA only allows a maximum of 0.02% TBHQ of the total oils in any given product. And according to a study out of the University of Alberta, chronic exposure to TBHQ can lead to carcinogenicity. So it’s possible that if one were to eat instant ramen and only instant ramen, they could have an increased risk of developing cancer. Although, there are many other foods that have TBHQ in it, so any diet high in processed food could leave you at risk. That being said, just because processed food takes more time to digest than handmade food, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be exposed to more substances. While fresh, unprocessed foods are healthier, eating only one batch of instant ramen isn’t going to expose you to any dangerous levels of anything, no matter how long your body takes to break it down. Eating it every day on the other hand? That’s a different can of worms altogether. The flavouring powder in instant ramen is also high in sodium, which, in high enough amounts can lead to high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. Not only that, but diets high in sodium are also a major cancer risk. A study from Gastroenterology Research and Practice reviewed a number of studies and meta-analyses, and found a positive association between “dietary salt exposure and gastric intestinal metaplasia”. Metaplasia meaning an abnormal change in tissue structure, aka, cancer. The researchers suggest a few possible ways that this could work. The main mechanism that they believe would cause this association is that high salt concentration in the stomach can erode away at the mucosal barrier leading to inflammation and damage to the stomach lining. This could lead to an increase in cellular replication, which increases the risk of developing cancer cells. The mucosal barrier protects the body from many things including malevolent bacteria, like Helicobacter pylori, which in some people can lead to the development of cancer as well. In addition to that, damage to the stomach’s mucosal barrier leaves us vulnerable to other carcinogens that exist in our regular lives. Grill: And, what does that mean? Brew: A diet high in salt can leave you more vulnerable to the development of cancer cells in your gastrointestinal system. Those who shout “fake news” do so because the shortened English language translations of an article simply copy-paste one another, which they argue is proof that this story is fake, however those attempting to “debunk” it, didn’t bother, or could not, find or translate the original. The original article from Apple Daily News that presented this case, after undergoing translation by one of the members of the Brew crew, notes that doctor Yan Jiarui treated the case, and even said that there isn’t a direct link between instant noodles and cancer Here are other reports of the story in the news. Brew: However, high sodium diets can break down the mucosal barrier in the stomach, making one more liable to develop cancer. I don’t want anyone to get scared that eating instant noodles is going to give them cancer. In the case of the young man, his diet, aside from the enormous amount of instant noodles, was also filled with other processed foods, like sausages and jerky, which are all high in sodium and could have made him more susceptible to the development of cancer. In addition to that, he had a family history of colorectal cancer that might have contributed to his situation. Substances like TBHQ and sodium have links to cancer risks, but like most things, they’re only really bad for you in large doses. Clinical trials researchers perform on substances like these are to see at what point we start to see negative effects, so that the food regulatory board making decisions for your country can limit the legal amount of those substances. These limits are set so we never actually run into problems like this. That is, if we practice a varied diet, and try to eat healthy. If you take one thing from this video, practice moderation in all parts of life. If you’re worried about the flavour packets in cup noodles containing too much sodium, you can skip it, or just use half. We can’t avoid every single bad thing, and we all have our vices.
