By Lee I-chia
The Health Promotion Administration (HPA) yesterday urged people to avoid excessive eating during the Lunar New Year holiday, given the high prevalence of fatty liver disease in Taiwan.
With many people attending year-end banquets and dinners with friends and family, they should strive to avoid consuming too many calories, make sure they eat enough fruits and vegetables, and exercise during the holiday break, HPA Cancer Prevention and Control Division Director Lin Li-ju (林莉茹) said.
Photo: Chiu Chih-jou, Taipei Times
She said that the buildup of excessive fats in the liver can cause chronic inflammation and cell damage to the organ, and can lead to chronic liver disease, cirrhosis or cancer.
A 2019 study showed that the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in Taiwan was about 33.3 percent, the HPA said.
Liver cancer is the fifth most common cancer in the nation, and 10,982 people were diagnosed with it in 2020, which is lower than the year before, it said, referencing Taiwan cancer registry data for 2020.
Ministry of Health and Welfare data from 2021 showed that 4,065 people died of chronic liver disease or cirrhosis, making the illnesses the 10th-leading cause of death in Taiwan, while 7,970 people died of liver cancer, the second-leading cause of death, the HPA said.
About 80 percent of liver cancer cases were caused by hepatitis B and hepatitis C infections, while about 20 percent were caused by fatty liver disease, it said.
There are no medicines to treat fatty liver disease, so the best method to combat it is a healthy lifestyle, with a good diet and exercise to maintain a healthy body weight, Lin said.
People should calculate their body mass index, eat smart, exercise regularly, weigh themselves daily and regularly measure their waist, she said.
People should prepare Lunar New Year dishes low in fat, salt and sugar, and high in fiber, to reduce the accumulation of fat in the body and prevent the development of fatty liver disease, she added.
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