In the course of my recent reading, I came across some interesting information relating to the sugar cane plant.
As we know, sugar cane production has been plummeting in Barbados for the past several years. Chief among the reasons for this is that we spend more money producing sugar than we make from its sale. However, the reason why we persist in growing it is that we are paid in US dollars, which is our primary trading currency.
In more recent times, we have been hearing of initiatives to add value to our sugar cane production by use of its by-products other than rum and sugar itself. One of the suggestions was that we should grow a different strain of sugar cane to produce sugar ethanol (alcohol) as an alternative source of energy, like they do in Brazil, for example.
However, I recently read that the sugar cane pulp (or bagasse, as we call it) is an abundant and inexpensive source of a plant sterol called beta sitosterol. What does this have to do with the price of sugar, you may ask? Well, as it so happens, beta sitosterol is a plant chemical which may play a very useful part in the treatment of a disease which is very common in Barbados. This disease is benign prostatic hyperplasia (enlarged prostate).
Let me say here that this is not the same as prostate cancer, and it turns out that only a relatively small proportion of men with benign prostatic hyperplasia may actually go on to develop prostate cancer, but given that men of colour tend to be disproportionately affected, the number of men in a country like Barbados suffering from both benign prostatic hyperplasia and prostate cancer could very well be quite significant, given our demographic make-up. I will leave the urologists among us to speak to the actual numbers they see in clinical practice.
In a nutshell, it turns out that the levels of beta sitosterol present in sugar cane pulp (bagasse) are significantly higher than those in other sources – like saw palmetto – which are commonly touted as treatments for benign prostatic hyperplasia.
Given the prohibitive costs of medicines for treating prostate cancer and benign prostatic hyperplasia (for the former, it can run into tens of thousands of dollars per month), it would certainly be worth our while to do the necessary research into this widely available product and see whether there is any merit in developing it into a viable commodity. It may go a long way to alleviating what has seemingly become a national pastime; namely, that of men exposing their persons to relieve themselves any and every place with little consideration for the sensibilities of others.
Remember, one man’s trash (pun intended) is another man’s treasure!
