Today, we are talking about 8 things, some in your kitchen, some in your bathroom, some you may not even know are inside your own body right now, that can increase the risk of cancer. Now, let us open the case files.

Suspect number one: hepatitis B, when it goes untested and untreated.

Hepatitis B is a virus that attacks your liver. Many Nigerians are living with it right now, and most of them don’t know, because it can sit quietly in the body for years without a single symptom. If it remains there without treatment, it can lead to liver cancer.

The good news is that a simple, affordable blood test can be used to check your status. And there is a vaccine that protects you completely if you are not yet infected. The Hepatitis B vaccine. So, you see that this is not a suspect you have to face unprepared.

Suspect number two: aflatoxin.

This one hides in your kitchen, and most people don’t know. Big grammar, don’t worry, I’ll explain.
Aflatoxin is a poison produced by mould, the same greenish-white thing you sometimes see on groundnuts, corn, garri, or beans that they stored badly in heat and moisture. Our weather makes that combination of heat and poor storage a real danger. Health researchers have classified aflatoxin as a direct cause of liver cancer, and it becomes even more dangerous when it is combined with untested hepatitis B, the two suspects working together multiply the damage to your liver.

And this is the mistake most people make: scraping off the mould and eating the rest, assuming the “clean” part is safe. It is not. The poison spreads through the food and your two koro koro eyes cannot see it. If groundnuts, beans, or grains smell musty or show any mould, throw the entire batch inside dustbin, not inside pot. Better to be safe than sorry.

Suspect number three: skin bleaching creams and chemicals.

You want to be lighter. You want your skin to be bright like sun even if naturally, you’re a dark person. You want to glow, that’s how some of you will glow to glory. We have been shouting this thing. NAFDAC has been telling you people. This thing is a public health crisis, not just a beauty trend. The danger comes from what is hidden inside these bleaching products — mercury, high levels of hydroquinone, and strong steroids that were never meant for daily use on the whole body.

See, your skin’s natural pigment, melanin, is your built-in sunscreen, it protects you from the sun’s damaging rays. Bleaching removes that protection away, layer by layer, leaving your skin more exposed to UV damage. On top of that, ingredients like mercury can go from entering your skin to going inside your bloodstream, where they attack your kidneys and cause issues.

Suspect number four: smoking.

Hear this and hear this well. Before some of you will say it is only about people that smoke cigarettes. Smoking, generally, as long as you light it with fire like this and you are inhaling it, it increases the risk of cancer. And it is not only lung cancer we are talking about. Once that smoke enters your body, it can damage cells in your mouth, your throat, your bladder, even organs that never came near the smoke directly, because those chemicals travel through your blood.

Now, tobacco is the main gang leader in this smoking story. It is the most studied, most documented cause of smoking related cancer in the world. Cigarette smoke alone contains over 7,000 chemicals, and at least 69 of them are known to cause cancer. That’s not me talking, that’s the report according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC]. Smoking is linked to about 4 in every 10 cancers, and about 3 in every 10 cancer deaths.

Now, there is one lie that many of you like to spread. You will hear somebody say ehn, but shisha is different, it is safer, it has flavour, the taste is different. Nkechi, Emeka, that is not true. Don’t let anybody deceive you. Studies comparing shisha smokers to cigarette smokers have found that a single shisha session can expose you to more tar and carbon monoxide than one cigarette. Tar is that black thing from coal, they use it to make roads. Carbon monoxide is the gas that comes out of your gen, the danfo, your car. Can you see what someone is inhaling??

So don’t let anybody deceive you. Say no to smoking in any form.

Suspect number five: heavy, regular alcohol use.

Your liver processes almost everything you drink. After years of heavy drinking, that constant processing damages liver cells, and repeated damage and repair is exactly the kind of environment where cancer can form. Alcohol is also linked to cancers of the mouth, throat, and breast.

Now this is where many of you will start arguing with me. You will say, “Aproko Doctor, I don’t drink like that, I only take one bottle on weekends, small ogogoro, small burukutu, that one no go affect me.” Ehn? I hear you. But the World Health Organization has already put that argument to rest. In 2023, they said plainly, there is no safe amount of alcohol when it comes to your health. None.

That is why alcohol sits in the same highest risk category as tobacco and asbestos, a group called Group 1 carcinogens, meaning scientists are certain it causes cancer, not just suspect it. And the list keeps growing. Beyond the liver, mouth, throat, and breast we already mentioned, alcohol also raises your risk of cancer in your esophagus, that’s your food pipe, and your colon, your large intestine. So this is not about waiting until you become a heavy drinker before you start worrying.

Suspect number six: Human Papillomavirus [HPV], combined with skipping cervical cancer screening.

HPV is a very common virus that spreads through direct skin-to-skin contact, mostly during tueh tueh. As long as there is that close “body-touch-body” contact down there, the virus can cross over. In most people, the body clears it on its own. But in some women, some high-risk types of HPV stay and slowly cause changes in the cervix that can develop into cervical cancer after years. This is exactly why cervical cancer remains one of the leading causes of cancer death among Nigerian women because so many of the cases are caught late.

This is what changes everything: the HPV vaccine. If you have daughters between the ages of 9 and 14, vaccinating them now is one of the most powerful things you can do, it is now part of Nigeria’s routine immunisation programme. And for adult women, regular cervical screening catches changes early, long before they ever become cancer.

Suspect number seven: heavily processed and preserved meats.

The World Health Organisation’s cancer research agency has classified processed meats as a direct cause of cancer, especially cancer of the colon.

This does not mean panic and throw away everything in your kitchen. It means treating these as foods that you don’t eat all the time, not something you eat everyday. Eat healthy foods, not everytime processed food, pizza today, hotdog tomorrow, corned beef next tomorrow. Eat foods that are rich in fibre, foods like vegetables, fruits, beans.

Let us go back to how our mothers and grandmothers used to feed us—real, whole food. When we started abandoning our efo riro, edikaikong, tuwo, and proper brown beans because we want to feel ‘civilised’ with canned foods, sausages, gbogbotigbo, we opened the door for these diseases. Your colon needs that natural roughage to sweep your system clean like a new broom. So, stop using your own hard-earned money to buy sickness; go to the market, buy vegetables, and let your food protect you.

Suspect number eight: carrying excess body weight, especially around the stomach.

Excess fat tissue is not just sitting there quietly. It is active, it produces its own hormones and triggers low-level inflammation throughout your body. If that continues for years, that combination has been linked to a higher risk of many cancers, including cancers of the breast, colon, and womb.

I know we sometimes like to praise big stomach as “evidence of good living” or a sign that you have finally “arrived.” But medically, it is a ticking time bomb. Move your body. You don’t have to pay for an expensive gym to protect your life. Start by taking walks, using the stairs instead of the elevator, and reducing those heavy, late-night eba. Give your body a chance to burn that excess fuel, instead of packing it inside your stomach.

I know someone in the comment section may be asking, Ehnn Aproko Doctor, Does this mean I will get cancer if I’ve done any of these things?

Emeka and Nkechi, Calm down. That’s why we called them suspects. They increase the risk. The goal of this video is to inform you so that you can change all those your bad bad habits that may expose you to cancer. Go and check your hepatitis B status. Check your the way you store your food. Book that screening you have been postponing. Eat healthy. See, all these things are so that we can fight cancer before it even tries to happen.

As you have reach here in this blog post, it’s not for you to just close it and move on. Please share. Drop the link in all those your WhatsApp groups. This is the type of message you should be sharing, not gossip gossip every time.