Eating fruit is a poor way to hydrate, Taichung-based doctor of internal medicine Wang Chun-hsing (王俊興) said on Thursday after treating a diabetic farmer who said he ate about 20 kiwifruit per day to ease his thirst.
The unnamed 65-year-old was accustomed to eating the fruit, as he farmed for convenience and to save money, said Wang, head of the endocrinology and metabolism division at Taichung Veterans General Hospital.
In February last year, the farmer’s weight fell from 70kg to 55kg and he described feeling constantly thirsty, regardless of how much water he drank or fruit he ate, Wang said.
Blood tests showed that he had a post-fasting blood-sugar level of 299 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) and a hemoglobin A1C level of 15 percent, Wang said.
The readings were higher than the medical standard of 100mg/dl and 7 percent respectively, leading to a diagnosis of diabetes, he said.
The condition is the result of chronic and excessive fruit-eating when he should have drunk water, he said, adding that his initial weight was a compounded factor.
The man was directed to drink 1.5 liters of water and eat no more than two helpings of fruit per day — with each helping about the equivalent of seven grapes — and to exercise for an hour each morning and evening, Wang said.
A diabetic person who does not control their blood sugar has higher risk of microvascular diseases affecting the retina, kidney and nervous system, and macrovascular diseases that could lead to heart attacks or strokes, common causes of death, he said.
The most common and obvious symptoms of excessive blood sugar include increased appetite for food and water, increased urine volume and weight loss, he said.
People with a family history of diabetes, a body mass index of more than 24 or those who do not get enough exercise should measure their blood-sugar levels regularly, 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
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