Cardiovascular diseases cause more deaths in women than cancers, with the mortality rate increasing by 22 percent in the past five years, women’s health groups have warned.
While many people have the impression that cardiovascular diseases mainly occur in men, Taiwan Women’s Link and the Taiwan Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology said cardiovascular diseases are the biggest health threat to women, taking more lives than all forms of cancer combined.
According to the association’s data, deaths from cardiovascular disease in women every year in the past decade were three to four times that of deaths from gynecological cancer.
Ministry of Health and Welfare data showed that there were about 23,800 women who died of cardiovascular disease nationwide in 2016, more than the approximately 18,500 female deaths of all forms of cancer in the same year.
Association secretary-general Huang Min-chao (黃閔照) said women are faced with increased risk of cardiovascular disease when taking contraceptives, during pregnancy or postmenopause, but doing exercise can help reduce the risk.
“Taking birth control pills is an effective contraceptive measure, but is not suitable for everyone, as women with poor liver functions, chronic migraine, cardiovascular symptoms or those older than 35 have a higher risk of developing deep vein thrombosis or having a stroke,” Huang said.
“Studies have suggested that the risk of deep vein thrombosis in pregnant women is increased by five to 10 times,” he said, adding that risks of gestational hypertension and gestational diabetes are also increased so pregnant women should keep doing exercises until well into the postpartum period.
Metabolic and hormonal changes at menopause can also lead to higher risks of arterial stiffness, hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases, so postmenopausal women are encouraged to get regular health checkups and to exercise regularly, he added.
Taiwan Women’s Link chairwoman Huang Yi-ling (黃怡翎) said studies have suggested that doing exercise regularly can reduce the risk of a stroke by 20 percent and the risk of coronary heart disease by 30 to 40 percent, while maintaining a healthy, balanced diet is also very important.
Taiwan Heart Foundation deputy executive manager Yeh Hung-i (葉宏一) said women show more atypical signs of a heart attack compared with men and that can sometimes be neglected, so women with a family history of cardiovascular disease or with chronic hypertension, hyperglycemia or hyperlipidemia should be especially careful and get regular health checkups.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods