The prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease has significantly increased in the past two decades, and is more common in middle-aged people, mainly due to work-related stress, eating disorders and excessive secretion of stomach acid, a physician said.
About 60 percent of gastroesophageal reflux disease patients in Taiwan also suffer from nocturnal symptoms, such as acid reflux, which can affect the quality of their sleep, causing them to feel tired during work the next day, said Lin Tsung-nan (林宗男), a former physician at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology who is now a private practitioner.
Taiwanese baseball star Chen Chin-feng (陳金鋒) on April 11 said he has suffered from the disease for more than 10 years, with the symptoms surfacing whenever he feels stressed, but added that taking antacids do not have much effect.
Research published last year suggests that the prevalence of gastroesophageal reflux disease in the nation could be as high as 25 percent, and market research estimated that Taiwanese use large amounts of gastrointestinal medication yearly.
According to research conducted between September 2015 and August last year by Nielsen, Taiwanese consumed 185 tonnes of over-the-counter powdered gastrointestinal drugs during the period.
That amount is equivalent to about 360 million tablets at 0.2cm thick each, which would stand as tall as 1,600 Taipei 101 skyscrapers if they were stacked on top of one another.
Another market study conducted last year on people aged between 25 and 55 who have had gastrointestinal or digestive disorders in the previous three months showed that more than 30 percent of consumers considered over-the-counter gastrointestinal medication to have very limited effect on relieving their symptoms.
Lin said that while typical over-the-counter medication can be categorized into antacids and histamine-2 receptor antagonists, sometimes the drugs’ effect is limited, so a new type of over-the-counter drug containing proton pump inhibitors could be an alternative.
However, he said if over-the-counter drugs cannot relieve symptoms in two weeks, patients should see a doctor and try to maintain a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle.
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:
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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