For many years, breast cancer has been the most common cancer among women in Taiwan, with more than 10,000 new cases every year, the Formosa Cancer Foundation said yesterday, urging women to go for regular checkups and exercise to reduce their risk of breast cancer.
As next month is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the foundation yesterday held a news conference to raise awareness and invited dance celebrity Serena Liu (劉真) to teach breast cancer patients some dance techniques to help them maintain a happy mood
Foundation chief executive officer Lai Gi-ming (賴基銘) said that among women, breast cancer has the highest incidence rate of all cancer types, and the number of cases has been growing every year, reaching an average of 35 cases per day.
While there were 2,952 cases of beast cancer reported in 1996, the number grew to 12,672 in 2016, increasing 4.2 times in two decades, the foundation said.
The number of cases grew the most among women aged 50 to 54, increasing 6.3 times over the same period, it added.
More younger women are being diagnosed with breast cancer, which might be because they are choosing to have children later in life or due to exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, Lai said.
The five-year survival rate for breast cancer found in its early stages is more than 90 percent, he added.
People undergoing chemotherapy might feel tired and unwilling to take part in physical activities, and while chemotherapy can damage cells and decreases a person’s metabolism, exercising regularly can improve the immune system and maintain muscle mass, Lai said.
Foundation deputy chief executive Tsai Li-chuan (蔡麗娟) said a study has suggested that performing moderate-intensity exercise for 30 to 60 minutes per day reduces the risk of breast cancer by 25 to 30 percent, and that chemotherapy patients working with the foundation have also said that dancing has helped them regain self-confidence and improved their quality of life.
A 47-year-old interior designer and mother of two children surnamed Wang (王) was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer with lymph nodes metastasis, and experienced painful side effects from chemotherapy.
Wang joined a dance group at the hospital and learned to let go off stress while dancing.
She has completed her chemotherapy, but still joins the group every week.
Four factors led to the declaration of a typhoon day and the cancelation of classes yesterday, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. Work and classes were canceled across Taiwan yesterday as Typhoon Krathon was forecast to make landfall in the southern part of the country. However, northern Taiwan had only heavy winds during the day and rain in the evening, leading some to criticize the cancelation. Speaking at a Taipei City Council meeting yesterday, Chiang said the decision was made due to the possibility of landslides and other problems in mountainous areas, the need to avoid a potentially dangerous commute for those
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
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China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
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