Tobacco contains a variety of different noxious substances, but the dangers of three of them are particularly important. Nicotine is the substance that causes addiction to tobacco. It acts as a tranquillizer, but also stimulates the release of adrenaline into the smoker’s blood stream, which may explain why smokers are found to have raised blood pressure.
Tar (lami) in tobacco produces chronic irritation of the respiratory system and is thought to be a major cause of lung cancer.
Carbon monoxide passes from the lungs into the blood stream, where, in competition with oxygen, it easily combines with hemoglobin and thus interferes with oxygenation of tissues in the long term, persistently high levels of carbon monoxide in the blood – which occurs in smokers lead to hardening of the arteries, which in turn greatly increases the risk of coronary thrombosis (forming small particles like blebs which interfere with circulation)
The crux of the matter is, Tanzania is growing tobacco in many parts of the country like Singida, Urambo, Iringa, Tabora, Mpanda Namtumbo and many parts. Bees harvesting also takes place in those areas where tobacco is grown. Do the poor farmers and their agricultural experts know that honey and bees wax is severely contaminated by the pollen that comes from tobacco plants? What does this mean to our honey and wax production in Tanzania if not passing it to the lowest grade for it to be rejected?
Tobacco kills 5 million annually worldwide and by the year 2025, if current trends of consumption continue, it will be responsible for the death of 10 million people every year. Smoking related deaths will continue to surpass the deaths from HIV-AIDS epidemic. Seventy per cent of these tobacco deaths will occur in the developing countries of the world including Tanzania.
Statistics show that 35% of all cancer cases attended at Ocean Road Cancer Institute in Dar es Salaam are tobacco related.
Here is the story of the royal jelly which is very nutritious with all the properties of not only food for the queen of the bees (not Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain).
Many people raise their eyebrows when they are told that substances as exotic sounding as bee pollen, bee propolis, and the royal jelly- the special nutrient of queen bees will contribute to their health and may even protect them from cancer. Patients have gotten used to being told to eat a healthy diet and take their vitamins.
Honey has been used as food and a home remedy for cough, treating burns and wound dressing since times immemorial.
Most of the enzymes, coenzymes, vitamins, minerals, and those chemicals from the fibres we eat are in the plants and animals around us. The bees unfortunately have not been known by many that they have a major role to play in our lives. Most of the natural products used in the developed world for cosmetics and beautification come from bees wax, a by product from bees harvesting. In the developing world Tanzania included, our daughters and our wives use cosmetics which are not natural products but a barrage of chemicals causing cancer and damaging their kidneys.
Bees go out to the flowering plants and collect pollen as food for the hives. They gather the sticky stuff into “baskets” on lower parts of their legs. Commercial bee hives use pollen traps to collect the excess pollen, which there is always a great deal of. French and British researchers have reported that pollen contains 96 substances with nutritional value, including vitamins, minerals, carotenoids (products from carrots) enzymes, amino acids, fatty acids, and bioflavinoids. Pollen has vitamin E, inositol, pyridoxine, zinc, boron, magnesium, arginine, glutamine and various polyphenols in it. Most of these good things mentioned have cancerous preventive properties. Will our bees we harvest in the parts I have mentioned in Tanzania where tobacco is grown have the anti cancer properties if that pollen comes from tobacco plants? Education, Education, Education should have been our priority (kipaumbele) in the last 50 years. I hope in the coming fifty years it will be addressed that growing tobacco cannot go on in places where bees harvesting are taking place.
Bee pollen if revisited therefore is a powerful tool. It has however not, been very much researched, and compared with other bee products. According to Dr. Mitchell Gaynor, Director of Medical Oncology Strang Cancer Preventive Centre in his book Dr. Gaynor’s Cancer Prevention Programme, Lower your cancer risk now and his colleague Jerry Hickey a lot has been mentioned on bees harvesting, royal jelly and all those good things about honey and their by products.
In the book I mentioned above. There was a report way back in 1948 in the journal of the National Cancer Institute stating that when bee pollen was added to the diet of experimental animals, it delayed and in some cases prevented the appearance of breast cancer. Conclusions made anecdotal data from Russia and France showed that beekeepers have very low incidence of cancer.
There will be an explanation that needs to be done by Tanzania Food and Drug Authority, National Institute for Medical Research and the Government Chemist why we have so many cancers in some parts of our country. We need to go further to the tobacco growing districts and regions what do our honey and wax contain before we sell it abroad or we use it ourselves for home consumption. If not, we may be caught unaware for our bees honey and bees wax harvesting to be declared unfit for export. It is a valid warning and a sign not to neglect. In the absence of a scientific research I cannot say more but my caution should be taken seriously.
Propolis has been used as a food supplement in recent years. In folk medicine, its traditional use as an anti-inflammatory, antiviral, and immunostimulatory agent is well known. There is some evidence for thinking it can inhibit certain cancers.
Japanese researchers, for instance, have found that bee propolis increases the levels of natural killer cells, a type of lymphocyte that the body inevitably calls on when it has cancer cells to kill. Dr. Gaynor has been encouraging his patients to eat propolis
The food of queens: One final product that is certainly highly nutritious is royal jelly. This exotic food is the nutrient that worker bees feed to the queen bee, causing her to become larger, capable of producing 2,000 eggs a day and longer lived. With a life span of 5 to 7 years, a queen bee lives 40 times as long as the average member of her hive. Royal jelly, therefore, is a highly powered nutrient both for bees and even people. I highly suspect our royal jelly in Tanzania where it is also filled with nicotine from tobacco grown around. Nicotine has 4000 chemicals and 60 of those chemicals are carcinogenic. After 50 years of independence we still grow tobacco in areas where we also do bees harvesting honey and bees wax full of nicotine. I suspect it could tell us why in some parts of Tanzania there are more cancers
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