In our daily life many people use disposable chopsticks due to its convenience, but long-term use of this may lead to lung cancer.

Currently due to the lack of popularization in the screening and early diagnosis of lung cancer when diagnosed most patients already have developed into advance stage. It is still a long-term and tough issue to detect and treat lung cancer early. As it were, lung cancer is “the first killer" among cancers and its high incidence is mainly caused by human's behavior just as people produce disposable chopsticks which induce lung cancer.

Formal disposable chopsticks are made of wood with good texture which does not need special processing, but now most of chopsticks need to be bleached, there are generally three ways by using sulfur dioxide, hydrogen peroxide or calcium hypochlorite (sodium). After bleaching, it needs a lot of water to stew or wash, because the sulfur contains heavy metals, such as lead, mercury and so on.

This production is not only wasting the precious water but also is polluting environment by the sewage produced during bleaching. Although most of producers will skip the stewing which decreases the sewage discharge to some extent, the heavy metal badly exceeding the standard that was contained in the disposable chopsticks directly affects its users. Furthermore, sulfur dioxide is easy to flow into airway by air, causing cough, asthma, etc. The used chopsticks and its packing bag will be thrown away, which will further pollute environment. In addition, because the production is not completely sterile, the water contained in the wood and bamboo is easy to mildew those chopsticks.

Furthermore, shelf life of the disposable chopsticks is only half a year, if consumers use the expired disposable chopsticks frequently, mold on it may enter their lungs to cause lung diseases such as tuberculosis, lung cancer, as mold tends to breed in a moist environment.

The specialist of Modern Cancer Hospital Guangzhou reminds you that if you have no choice but using disposable chopsticks, you need to put it in spoiled water to clear its dust and bacteria as well as the poisonous chemicals remained on it.

*Surgery, in addition to the appropriate chemotherapy and radiotherapy, are effective in treating early cancer, but certain patients in late stage of cancer may not be tolerate surgery well as they can be relatively weak. A combination of carefully planned minimally invasive therapy, chemotherapy or radiotherapy can effectively reduce the side effects and discomfort of treatment and may help patient get better efficacy.