About 20 percent of Taiwanese with liver cancer also have a diagnosis of fatty liver disease or alcoholic liver disease, Taiwan Cancer Registry data showed.
One in four people worldwide have fatty liver disease, while the incidence rate in Taiwan ranges between 11.4 percent and 41 percent, reports released by the National Health Research Institutes showed.
The main causes of fatty liver disease are high cholesterol and ineffective diabetes self-management, which are often related to being overweight and drinking too much alcohol.
The WHO defines being overweight as a chronic condition, and people who are overweight for a long period are more likely to be diagnosed with fatty liver disease and to experience diabetes, high cholesterol, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, gout and osteoarthritis — and at almost twice the frequency of those with a healthy weight, Health Promotion Administration Cancer Prevention and Control Division Director Lin Li-ju (林莉茹) said on Friday.
Fatty liver disease results when excess fat causes inflammation in the liver, said Hsu Shu-ting (許舒淳), a doctor in the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Section of Cathay General Hospital in Taipei.
Although it does not sound like a serious condition, persistent inflammation increases a person’s chance of developing cirrhosis or liver cancer by 10 to 20 percent, so it should not be ignored, she said.
“People living a modern lifestyle are busy at work and lack exercise. They often eat out and take sugary drinks with their meals, which significantly increases their likelihood of developing liver cancer,” Hsu said.
“Drinking too much alcohol will likely lead to alcoholic liver disease, which puts people at a higher risk for cirrhosis and liver cancer — at a much greater incidence rate than those with fatty liver disease,” she said.
A fatty liver does not have obvious signs — those with a fatty liver who experience pain or fatigue might already have severe inflammation or a tumor — so regular medical examinations are needed, she added.
“Most people should have an annual checkup, but someone with advanced fatty liver disease and severe inflammation should go every six months,” Hsu said.
No drugs effectively treat fatty liver disease, Lin said.
Those with the condition should engage in at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week, she said, adding that aerobic exercise has been shown to reduce the fat level in the liver.
“It is important to have a balanced diet — to eat more fruits, vegetables, and whole grain and multigrain foods, while avoiding sweets, refined foods, foods high in salt and oil, and processed foods,” Lin said, adding that a fatty liver and fibrosis of the liver greatly improve from a 5 to 10 percent reduction in body weight.
In 2017, 11,225 people in Taiwan were diagnosed with liver cancer and 8,402 people died of it, the Health Promotion Administration said, adding that by preventing or treating a fatty liver, people can effectively reduce their risk of liver cancer.
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
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
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