Thirty percent of Taiwanese above the age of 18 do not regularly check their blood pressure, medical experts said.
A healthy person’s blood pressure should be within the range of 140/90 mmHg (systolic/diastolic pressure), they added, urging people with high blood pressure to seek medical help.
High blood pressure, or hypertension, is common in Taiwan, according to Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics, which showed that one in 4.6 deaths in the nation were caused by conditions related to hypertension, such as heart attacks and cerebrovascular diseases.
People used to assume that only older people experience hypertension, National Taiwan University Hospital cardiologist and Taiwan Hypertension Society secretary-general Wang Tsung-tao (王宗道) said.
However, with changing dietary habits and lifestyles, such as eating food high in fats and staying up late, more young people have started developing high blood pressure, he said.
People with high blood pressure initially show no obvious symptoms, Wang said.
Young patients often seek medical help only after having a stroke, Wang said, adding that it is critical that people regularly measure their blood pressure to prevent cardiovascular diseases.
The American Board of Preventive Medicine suggests that people above 18 should have their blood pressure measured at least once every year.
Health Promotion Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Jun-chiu (陳潤秋) advised people to measure their blood pressure twice a day — in the morning and in the evening — and repeat the measurement after a week to obtain an average figure.
While measuring, people should avoid talking or shaking their legs, she said.
To mark World Hypertension Day tomorrow, the health agency — along with the Taiwan Hypertension Society, the Pharmacists Association and the Taiwan Millennium Health Foundation — is to set up 3,000 stations to measure blood pressure for free at pharmacies, 7-Eleven convenience stores, Cosmed stores and regional hospitals nationwide.
People should avoid consuming too much oil and seasoning, and keep their daily sodium intake below 2.4g, which is equivalent to 6g of salt, Wang said, adding that people should exercise for at least 150 minutes per week.
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