Taiwan needs to improve its health awareness, the Bureau of Health Promotion said yesterday during a presentation on the overall health condition of Taiwanese, adding that non-communicable diseases now account for 80 percent of deaths in the country and that national life expectancy was lower than in most developed countries and had recently been surpassed by South Korea.
“Sixty percent of deaths in Taiwan are caused by chronic illnesses, which are the leading causes of non-communicable disease deaths, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases,” bureau director-general Chiou Shu-ti (邱淑媞) said.
She added that there are numerous risk factors that need to be closely monitored by health authorities, including tobacco and alcohol use, unbalanced eating, salt and saturated fat intake, and physical inactivity.
The WHO has laid out a set of nine non-communicable disease targets for 2025, the bureau said.
Among them are a 25 percent reduction in premature mortality (ages 30 to 70) from non-communicable diseases, a 30 percent reduction in tobacco use, no increase in diabetes and obesity, and a 25 percent reduction in cases of high blood pressure, it said.
Chiou said the mortality rate for cancer, which accounts for 28 percent of deaths in Taiwan, is particularly high compared with other countries.
Taiwan’s mortality rate for diabetes and cardiovascular disease is also worrying, decreasing at a rate slower than in South Korea, which had a lower male life expectancy than Taiwan until 2004, Chiou said.
In addition, the incidence of fatal heart attacks has once again increased in Taiwan in recent years, defying the global trend and demanding attention, she said.
Compounding all this is that Taiwan is lagging behind Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and the schedule set by the WHO in the prevention of infant deaths, with an infant mortality rate of four per 1,000.
As far as risk factors leading to chronic diseases are concerned, Chiou said that although Taiwan has a much less obese population than many Western countries, Taiwanese are overweight compared to neighboring Asian countries and is ranked first in physical inactivity in 31 OECD countries.
Also, the number of male smokers above the age of 15 is higher than in Singapore, Hong Kong and other developed countries or regions.
Chiou said health authorities should ratchet up awareness about personal physical well-being and also work on developing institutional support and projects.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive