Wednesday, July 3, 2019

MYTH ABOUT BANANA

BANANA HAS TNF WHICH FIGHTS CANCER

             Images like these are now a days floating all over the internet giving new hope to people but this is just a myth . Banana definately is one of the best foods on the planet , which is available in 107 countries , but by no means it contains the so called cancer fighting substance (which is also a myth ) TFN ( tumor necrosis factor  also known as cachectin or cachexin ) .



   Another post runs like this saying the riper the banana , the more anti cancer they become (hinting at TNF presence in the fruit). 

WHAT IS TNF ?

   TNF is a complex protein compound which is produced/found in animals and not in plants . It's job is to boost your white blood cells to fight any virus , bacteria or abnormal cell growth in the body. It is produced by the body normally and deficiency or irregular production of which may cause depressions, cancer , psoriasis ,IBD ( a form of bowel disease ) , Alzheimer's disease etc and over production may cause various cancers and excess calcium in the blood, shock like conditions with fever,  hypotension , diarhea  or cachexia i.e. appetite and weight loss seen in patients of stage IV cancer. Hence if consumption of banana produced  TNF in our body (if we assume so) , it would have been till now banned in all countries since excess productions of TNF has been linked to above mentioned serious diseases.
      Also like any other protein , TNF is broken down into amino acids , simple sugars and fats before bring absorbed into the blood stream. It won't be able to survive intact within our intestine . 


RESEARCH 

       A research was done by some japanese scientists on rodents . Banana 's fruit extract was injected in the abdominal lining of their intestines  . This caused slight increase of TNF production in the rats . The doctors assumed that this TNF  was found in the bananas which they had extracted from the fruit pulp. 

CONCLUSION 

    TNF is produced by the animal /human body as a part of its immune system and plants do not have any immune system so production of TNF is ruled out in plants . If plants were able to produce it , the theory of evolution had to be re written 😂
  So please do not forward these sort of memes to anyone . Banana is definately a lovely fruit with a lots of benefits for health but it doesn't have this TNF complex protein compound it . 

Sources  
1 https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/ripe-bananas-prevent-cancer/
2 https://culinarylore.com/food-science:do-ripe-bananas-contain-tumor-necrosis-factor-tnf/