Food for thought about cancer?

In the UK it has been reported that around four in ten people are now likely to be diagnosed with cancer. All the 'usual suspects' for this increase have been proposed - lifestyle habits, poor diet, alcohol, stress, lack of exercise, smoking as well as all the additives in our over-processed, genetically modified, steroid stuffed food.

True, all these factors will have some bearing on the figures. I'm not an expert on this but I have a theory about something else too - still related to the food we eat but perhaps not talked about as much in the public domain. Not an additive, not a treatment or modification to foodstuffs, but something which occurs naturally in various forms - mycotoxins.

Although mycotoxin levels in foodstuffs are strictly monitored, I sometimes wonder whether current large scale crop farming methods are encouraging a proliferation of the moulds which produce these toxins to such an extent that by the time the produce enters the food chain, the actual mycotoxin levels may be higher than when the produce was last sampled for analysis. This might be especially so if the harvest has been stored in mould-enhancing conditions i.e. warm and humid; but also, mass-produced crops are now often stockpiled in silos, barns, warehouses etc for extended periods of time before they are used - even under perfect storage conditions, what effect does this long term storage have on the mycotoxin levels?

I usually end my posts with a verse or two from Scripture. You might think I'd struggle to find something for this one, but not so! There is a scientific understanding of the progression of the ten plagues which struck Egypt as recorded in the Book of Exodus. After the locusts came and ate all the crops in the fields, followed by an ash cloud caused by a major volcanic eruption which would have ruined the next harvest, the Egyptians had to break into their underground grain stores. This task was usually carried out by the firstborn - who would have inhaled fatal quantities of the mycotoxin producing spores.

In more recent history, maybe exposure to mycotoxin producing spores was the 'Curse of the Pharaohs' after all?

"Now it came about at midnight that the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of cattle. Pharaoh arose in the night, he and all his servants and all the Egyptians, and there was a great cry in Egypt, for there was no home where there was not someone dead."
Exodus 12:29-30