Guam - Betel nut chewing has become a tradition here in the islands, and for some it's become a way of life. With this in mind, the University of Guam's Cancer Research Center has been studying these habits to determine if chewing betel nut (locally known as "pugua"), can cause cancer.
According to UOG senior vice president and principal investigator Dr. Helen Whippy, researchers on island are studying these habits. She says there are different ways to chew it. "I think Chamorros generally chew just the nut. I know many people including our president chew betel nut. So we're hoping that's not the carcinogens. They chew it with tobacco. That can, of course, stain your mouth. They also chew it with the leaf and the lime. And sometimes they even put alcohol in it so there are many ways to do it," she explained.
This nut grows in much of the Pacific islands, Asia and parts of East Africa. While Chamorros typically chew the nut with leaves called papulu, Dr. Whippy says the way it is chewed differs from people around Micronesia. "We also found out that in Chuuk, chewing betel nut is a recent practice and so their rates of cancer, especially oral cancer, are not quite the same as places like Yap, where they've chewed betel nut as part of their culture for years and years," Dr. Whippy added.
In 2009, the UOG Cancer Research Center partnered with the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii at the UH Manoa. They received a five-year, $12.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. $8 million of that among will be spent on Guam to research issues like this. Because so many people on Guam chew betel nut, Dr. Whippy says they're hoping to gather more data.
"We should have some information for you next year because the oral lesions and cancer study will be over by then. That involves dentists from Saipan and Guam that have done training. They're taking samples of oral lesions and they're trying to correlate that and we should be able how to prevent that and what it means by our next community research update," she said.
To date, they've been able to determine that the cancers in Pacific Islander populations are linked to lifestyle or infections. Dr. Whippy says with the help of this grant, they're hoping to determine what causes cancer on Guam and the region.
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