For years Huang Sheng-yi helped feed Taiwan's addiction to the betel nut, planting thousands of the trees on his mountainous farm. Today he has felled most of them, incentivised by the government to ...

Betel nut prices fluctuate frequently. In this stall in Port Moresby they sell for one kina per nut (20 pence) - Torbjörn Wester/The Telegraph David Taim, a civil servant in Port Moresby, the capital ...

July 19 (UPI) --Researchers are developing a way for users to kick an addiction to betel quid -- a cheap stimulant that can lead to oral disease and cancer. By combining nicotine gum with an existing ...

What would you say if we told you that an addictive, cancer-causing substance could help you safely stop using another addictive, cancer-causing substance? Sure, it sounds far-fetched. But it may be ...

For centuries, hundreds of millions of people across Asia, from Pakistan to Palau, have chewed the spicy date-like fruit of the betel palm for a quick buzz. Then four years ago, a World Health ...

A University of Guam team is looking at developing strategies to help betel nut chewers who want to quit the risky habit. Yvette Paulino, principal investigator of the University of Guam Cancer ...

Ancient rituals and customs often leave behind obvious archaeological evidence. From the impeccably preserved mummies of Egypt to psychoactive substance residue that remained at the bottom of a clay ...

Traces of a psychoactive compound has been detected in the dental plaque of a Bronze Age woman buried in Thailand some 4,000 years ago, making it the earliest direct chemical evidence of humans ...

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea – A ubiquitous sight in Papua New Guinea's capital is men, women and children chewing betel nut combined with slaked lime and mustard bean, turning lips, teeth and ...

Betel nuts, or areca nuts, have been classified as a human carcinogen, meaning that there’s sufficient evidence that they cause cancer, says Yvette Paulino, associate professor at the University of ...