Women who cook on a daily basis without using a kitchen exhaust fan are nearly 1.8 times more likely to suffer from lung adenocarcinoma, a form of small-cell lung cancer, than those who do not cook, a study by the Genetic Epidemiology of Lung Cancer in Taiwan (GELAC) released yesterday showed.
The GELAC research team that conducted the study was comprised of representatives from the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI), Academia Sinica, National Taiwan University and several hospitals. They made public their findings at a two-day health forum in Taipei yesterday.
NHRI Institute of Population Sciences director Hsiung Chao (熊昭), one of the members of the team, said that nearly 90 percent of female patients with lung adenocarcinoma have never smoked, yet lung cancer has been the leading cause of cancer deaths among Taiwanese women for the past decade.
“The research team monitored the health conditions of 1,200 female lung adenocarcinoma patients and 1,200 healthy women since 2002 and found four major risk factors for lung cancer: tuberculosis, family medical history, second-hand smoke, and cooking fumes,” Hsiung said.
Hsiung said that women who have contracted tuberculosis are 2.9 times more susceptible to lung cancer, while those who have a family history of lung cancer or who have been exposed to secondhand smoke are 2.6 times and 1.5 times more likely respectively to contract the disease.
“In addition, women who have cooked three meals a day for 48 years are 1.78 times more likely to get lung cancer, but they could lower that risk by 43 percent by always having a kitchen range hood on while cooking,” Hsiung said.
National Taiwan University principal Yan Pan-chyr (楊泮池), a lung cancer expert, said that lung cancer is a multifactorial disease and that more than half of patients who develop it do not experience any symptoms in the early stages of the disease.
“Nearly 75 percent of patients with lung cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage and less than 20 percent of them live more than five years past their diagnosis,” Yang said.
Yang said that people aged 45 and older who are at high risk of developing lung cancer are advised to undergo routine low-dose computed tomography screening, which can detect lung nodules as small as 0.2cm to 0.3cm in diameter.
“Patients who have tumors that are less than 1cm wide when diagnosed typically have a 97 percent five-year survival rate, while that survival rate drops to approximately 80 percent for those with tumors ranging between 1cm and 2cm,” Yang said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
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