People with cardiovascular disease should be especially careful to prevent situations that might trigger an onset, as temperatures can change rapidly in autumn, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said on World Heart Day yesterday.
Temperature differences between morning and evening are usually large, sometimes up to 10°C, after the autumnal equinox, the HPA said, adding that body temperature changes narrow or widen blood vessels, with narrower blood vessels increasing blood pressure and heightening the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
WHO statistics show that an estimated 17.9 million people died from cardiovascular disease in 2016, 31 percent of global deaths, the HPA said, adding that heart disease was the second-leading cause of death in Taiwan last year, taking 21,569 lives, an average of one person every 24 minutes.
The number is 53,977 people if deaths caused by cerebral stroke, hypertension, diabetes, kidney disease and vascular disease are included, it said.
HPA Director-General Wang Ying-wei (王英偉) urged people with chronic diseases and elderly people to be alert to changes in the weather and practice healthy habits to protect the heart and prevent acute cardiovascular disease.
Lack of exercise, an unbalanced diet, obesity, smoking, chewing betel nuts and excessive drinking are risk factors that contribute to the “three highs”: high blood pressure, high blood lipids and high blood sugar, the HPA said.
People who have a high risk of cardiovascular disease should eat food with less salt and oil, and steam or boil food instead of deep frying it, the HPA said.
They should also exercise at moderate intensity for at least 150 minutes per week, keep warm, do warmup exercises and exercise with a friend or family member, it said.
They should not smoke and avoid secondhand smoke; get regular health checks to make sure their blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure are at healthy levels; maintain a healthy body weight and make use of government-funded health exams; and take prescription drugs for the “three highs” according to a doctor’s instructions, it said.
World Heart Day is organized by the World Heart Federation on Sept. 29 every year to inform people about cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death and disability in the world, and to promote preventative measures.
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