The doctor of a 52-year-old oral cavity cancer patient was furious when he discovered that his patient had been secretly pouring gaoliang, a fiery sorghum liquor, down his nasal feed tube just days after undergoing surgery to remove the cancer.
The man, surnamed Yeh (
The Chinese-language United Daily News reported that Yeh said that he had been a smoker, drinker and betel nut chewer ever since he completed his military service.
In recent years, he said he had been addicted to alcohol to the degree where he felt withdrawal symptoms if he didn't drink alcohol every day.
His doctor, Kaohsiung Chang Gung Hospital's Chien Chih-yen (
Department of Health figures indicated that oral cavity cancer was the fourth most common cancer in men and was strongly linked to drinking, smoking and betal nut chewing.
In recent years, the number of oral cavity cancer cases has increased along with betel nut use.
In 1979 alone, 282 cases of oral cavity cancer were reported in Taiwan.
By 1994 the number of cases of cavity cancer had grown to 1,545.
In 2002, the number of cases reached 3,709.
"The use of alcohol on its own is not necessarily carcinogenic, but when it is combined with cigarette or betel nut use, it strongly increases the likelihood of oral cavity cancer," said Chang Shyue-Yih (張學逸), the director of the ear, nose and throat department at Taipei Veterans' General Hospital.
"The stronger the alcohol content, the stronger the carcinogenic effect," he said.
However, according to Chang, it is possible that Yeh has found a way to indulge his addiction without exacerbating his cancer despite the anger of Yeh's doctor.
"If he took the liquor through his nasal tube, it means that there is no contact with the tissue of his oral cavity," Chang said. "Of course, he would still suffer from the deleterious effect of alcohol in his liver."
Old habits die hard, even when patients are warned that it could mean the difference between life and death.
"A serious alcohol addiction is as hard to break as an addiction to drugs," Chang said. "But for most patients, smoking is by far the most difficult habit to break."
"Even for those of who are told it could make the difference between life and death, only about half of my patients manage to quit smoking," Chang said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching