Vietnam - Vietnamese people “eat to die”?

VietNamNet Bridge - Dr. Dang Lich, Head of the Cardiovascular Ward of the Hanoi-based Huu Nghi (Friendship) Hospital says that he has met many people who died because of eating and drinking.

“When he was poor, a 45-year-old patient worked very hard and tried to save money but when he became rich, he involved in daily drinking and parties. He drank everyday, even several times a day. At the age of 45, he died of cirrhosis,” Dr. Lich told about one of his patients, as an example.

There is also a patient who suffered from bulimia. He was only 1m63 tall but weighed nearly 100kg. His family has a history of high blood pressure. The doctor advised him to lose weight by eating less and doing more exercises but the patient refused to cooperate with the doctor because “fasting” is impossible for him.

“If doing so, he eats not to live, but to die. I think our society does focus on eating and drinking. Everything must go with parties,” the doctor says.

The senior doctor also says that many of his patients are well-off people and the common diseases that they suffer from are high blood pressure, heart, liver and kidney diseases.

He adds that nowadays, many people eat without thinking about the connection between food and their health. The poor eat cheap and unsafe food while the rich eat super-nutritious food, with too much fat, meat and they can’t control their health.

“They have money but they don’t care how to eat hygienically and appropriately to the nutritional needs,” the doctor stresses.

Medical experts said that there is a close relation between insatiable eating with dangerous chronic diseases such as diabetes, gout, liver, kidney and cardiovascular diseases.

Dr. Ho Khai Hoan, Vice Head of the Diabetes Ward of the National Endocrinology Hospital, says that the diabetes type 1 (mainly with young people) accounts for just 5 percent of the total diabetic patients.

The remaining 95 percent of patients are of the diabetes type 2, mainly due to inappropriate diet (drinking more, eating more meat, fat and organs of animals) and physical inactivity.

The subjects with diabetes type 2 are often the elderly (over 40 years old) but now diabetics tend to rejuvenate, with many patients of over 30.

These patients might avoid the risk of getting diabetes by changing their lifestyle, including diet and exercise. But the fact shows that it is difficult to change the habits because they are already "rooted" in their life and eating is one of the major interests of man. Moreover, the lack of knowledge about the consequences of this disease also makes patients be undetermined to change their lifestyle.

The number of diabetics is showing signs of rapid growth. According to statistics, Vietnam currently has about 5 million patients with diabetes.

The number of new patients increased from 8 percent to 20 percent annually. This rate adds Vietnam to the group of countries with the fastest growth in the number of diabetics in the world.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Lam, Vice Director of the National Institute of Nutrition says that in recent years, the number of the overweight people increased about 1 percent annually and at present the rate is over 10 percent of adults, compared to 6 percent in 2005.

Cam Quyen