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Corn can contain dangerous toxins that cause liver cancer, but doctor says risk is low
There are loads of things you probably don’t know about the food you eat. Tomato leaves are full of a poison called tomatine, there’s arsenic in your rice and corn often contains cancer-causing toxins. Today, we’re focussing on the latter.
Lots of the corn we eat contains traces of poisonous, carcinogenic substances called aflatoxins, which is a scary thought. However, that doesn’t mean you need to stop eating the vegetable right now – a doctor says the risk risks are extremely low.
Corn can contain cancer-causing aflatoxins
Aflatoxins are a group of toxins that are produced by fungi which grow on certain crops including maize (corn), peanuts, cottonseed, and tree nuts, the National Cancer Institute explains.
The main fungi that produce aflatoxins are Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus, which contaminate crops in the field, at harvest, and during storage. However, the number of contaminated crops varies widely.
Sometimes, none of the yield is contaminated with aflatoxins. Other times, a big majority can be. Iowa State University says the prime conditions for the fungus to produce the toxin are warm nights over 70�F during the latter stages of growth when there has been little rain.
People can be exposed to these dangerous aflatoxins by eating contaminated corn, peanuts or tree nuts, or consuming meat and dairy from animals that have consumed them as feed. Farmers can also be exposed through the air.
The World Health Organization describes aflatoxins as one of the “most potent mutagenic and carcinogenic substances known” – meaning they cause cancer. Specifically, they cause liver cancer, shown to induce tumors in the liver of both animals and humans in various studies.
Aflatoxins are heat stable, meaning they won’t be destroyed by cooking the grain. So, your corn on the cob can still cause cancer even after it is barbecued or roasted.
Doctor says risk is ‘incredibly unlikely’
However, in a recent TikTok video, medical doctor Dr Karan Rajan said there is no need to stop eating corn as the risk is extremely low.
“It’s true that corn can be contaminated by certain molds which then produce toxins like aflatoxins which can be carcinogenic if consumed in high amounts over a long period of time, but that’s incredibly unlikely,” he claimed.
In the US, the safe limit of aflatoxin in corn is around 20 micrograms per kilo, but the average aflatoxin level in corn you can buy is approximately one to five micrograms per kilo. So, that’s far below the limit considered safe.
“To even get close to that daily limit of 20 micrograms of aflatoxin per day, you would need to eat between four and 20 kilos of corn in a day,” the doctor explained.
Even if you did eat that much, the aflatoxin exposure would not be harmful unless you continued to consume an extreme amount of corn over a long period of time.
“If you’re a corn lover in a country with any semblance of food safety regulation, you’re fine to eat corn,” Rajan concluded.
Dr Karan Rajan is a UK-based Surgeon in the NHS. He shares his health expertise with more than 5.3 million followers on TikTok and is also a Clinical Lecturer at Imperial College London and the University of Sunderland.
