Facing an especially cold winter this year, many people are attempting to stay warm by taking long, hot showers or baths, a practice that could increase the risks of cancer if done in an enclosed space, doctors said yesterday.
While many people enjoy taking a hot bath or shower, few are aware of the health risks associated with the activity, they said.
Chiang Shou-shan (江守山), a nephrologist at Shin-Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, said taking long, hot showers or baths for more than 20 minutes in a confined space with no circulation of fresh air could have a negative impact on a person’s health, because small amounts of chlorine and trihalomethanes (THM) found in tap and drinking water become volatile when the water is heated.
The chemicals can enter the body through the respiratory -system as a person breathes in the steam, Chiang said.
The longer the hot shower, the more THMs a person inhales, Chiang said.
Increasing shower time from five minutes to 10 minutes, for example, could cause a person to breathe in four to five times more THMs, he said.
THM is a byproduct of the small amount of chlorine added to the water supply by municipal authorities as a disinfectant. However, overexposure to THMs can increase the risks of developing various forms of cancer, including colon cancer, pancreatic cancer and bladder cancer.
The chemicals are also harmful to the liver and kidneys, and could increase the risks of miscarriage in women, he said.
Lin Ja-liang (林杰樑), a specialist in clinical toxicology at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Linkou District (林口), said that by limiting hot showers to less than 10 minutes and reducing the temperature of the water, a person could drastically decrease the amount of THMs absorbed by the body.
Turning on the fan in the bathroom to allow for air circulation was also a good way to avoid breathing in too many toxins from a steamy shower, he 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
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
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