Read the passages and answer the questions.
CHEMICALS billowing from superhot cooking oil in woks may contribute to the unusually high rate of lung cancer among Chinese women who do not smoke, researchers said.
Chinese cooks tend to use very high heat - more than 50 percent hotter than a typical sizzling American frying pan. At the higher temperatures,a Chinese rapeseed cooking oil released substantial amounts of chemicals known or suspected to cause genetic change, said Peter Shields from the Nation Cancer Institute in Bethesda,Maryland.
The high rate of lung cancer among women in China puzzled Shields because relatively few of them smoke cigarettes. Previous work suggested that cooking smoke might be the culprit. One study showed that women who reported extra eye irritation,who presumably were breathing extra doses of smoke, were more likely to get lung cancer. Shields and colleagues set out to analyze cooking oils, working with Dr. Xu at Shanghai Cancer Centre.
Comparing four kinds of cooking oil at high temperratures, researchers found that the Chinese rapeseeded oil gave off 22 times
more 1.3 butadiene, a potent cause of genetic disruption, that peanut oil did. The chemicals billowing off ahot work included benzene, also found in cigarette smoke and known to cause leukemia, as well as what Shields called "chemicals of concern" : acrocein, formaldehyde and other aldehydes. "The smoke gets so thick that some Chinese cooks keep the windows open even in winter, " he said
The cooks use such roaring hot temperatures, he was told, to rid the oil of a lingering bad taste. Lowering the temperature to what an American cook might use to saute vegetables, the researchers found the smoke content much less hazardous. Adding the preservative BHA also reduced the amount of suspect chemicals. Shields continues wok temperatures below the smoking point.