UNAIR NEWS – Food preserved with nitrosamine is widely distributed in the market. In fact, nitrosamine is a carcinogen compound (a substance that triggers cancer). From the concern to share the health of the community, five students of Universitas Airlangga have managed to produce Nitrosamin Test Kit (Nisa Kit), which  detects food that contains nitrosamines or not.

“We have not found other products that can detect nitrosamines in food. Most products sold outside are products that can only detect nitrites , not nitrosamines, “ said Yovilianda Maulitiva Untoro, the leader of the Entrepreneurship Student Creativity Program (PKMK) from Faculty of Science and Technology (FST) UNAIR in the press release.

The other four members of the PKMK team are Krisnadewi Suciati, Arini Sabilal Haque, Anisa Maharani, and Dwiki Rizaldi Wijaya. They conveyed this innovation in PKMK proposal, and have successfully passed the assessment of the Directorate General of Higher Education, so they deserved to get research funding from Kemenristekdikti in PKM program in 2017.

Furthermore, Yovilianda said that the cost of nitrite detection products is very expensive, reaching hundreds of thousands while Nisa Kit product is cheaper and easy to use. Mothers can easily prevent nasopharyngeal cancer, at least in their families.

There are still food products with nitrosamines content in the market. The process of preserving these foods usually uses nitrite, and generally the type of food that is preserved with nitrite is meat and salted fish. Nitrosamine is formed because during the process of food preservation there is a reaction between proteins and nitrite that causes different protein formulation in food.

Nitrite itself is more toxic than nitrates, therefore the consumption of nitrite for humans is limited from concentrations of 10-200 ppm. So the presence of nitrosamine in food is also very dangerous, among others, can cause tumors and other organ damage and the most fatal is to trigger the development of nasopharyngeal cancer.

Unfortunately, many people do not notice, they even do not know what nasopharyngeal cancer is. This disease had become a trending topic , thanks to South Korean actor who suffered from nasopharyngeal cancer, a cancer that grows in the nasopharynx. Nasopharynx is a part of the respiratory system located on the inner nose to the throat.

Based on the observations, the public or some of them do not know what causes cancer, including nasopharyngeal cancer. When the cancer has grown in the body and has reached a critical phase (high stage), they just realize it.

“In fact, people can do a prevention early, so it can minimize the development of a disease in the body. With this Nisa Kit we hope that housewives can easily know what foods are exposed to nitrosamines, so they can do nasopharyngeal cancer prevention, “Yovi said.(*)

Editor: Bambang Bes.