Sweet tooth and lack of proper exercise to blame
KUALA LUMPUR: Many Malaysians are not healthy because of their lifestyle — not exercising regularly and consuming too much sugar.
The number of people suffering from chronic diseases is worrying. For example, Malaysians with kidney problems nationwide are expected to increase to 106,000 by 2040. Health Ministry medical development division director Datuk Dr Bahari Awang Ngah said based on the data from the National Renal Registry Malaysia, some 39,711 patients were on dialysis due to kidney failure in 2016.
“The number, however, will continue to increase two-fold every year. More worryingly, 64 percent of those patients requiring haemodialysis treatment were diabetics,” he said after launching MyBuahPinggang Facebook page here yesterday.
He said though the recent sugar tax would eventually lead to Malaysians consuming less sugar, more had to be done to address this health issue.
“What is required is for Malaysians to adopt healthier lifestyles such as exercising more,” he added.
Dr Bahari also encouraged stage five chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients to undergo
peritoneal dialysis (PD) compared to haemodialysis treatment. PD or the process of washing in and out of the abdominal cavity (belly) in cycles is a dialysis option that provides a better quality of life compared to haemodialysis treatment.
“For now, we give freedom to the patients to choose the type of dialysis treatments. The PD treatment began in the 60s and the ministry targets 30 to 40 percent of patients to use PD this year.”
Dr Bahari said the best way to treat kidney problems was by kidney transplant but the number of organ donors was still low.
“The ratio is three donors to one million population. People are still skeptical about organ transplant although it is allowed in religion,” he added.
MyBuahPinggang is an official public page on Facebook which was developed on July 2 to encourage sharing of knowledge with regards to CKD and treatment especially PD and other related information.
