You might want to hold off on that second glass/bottle of Grey Goose the next time you’re in Changkat Bukit Bintang, but it goes a little further than that: almost a thousand Malaysians die of liver diseases every year, more are contracting fatty liver disease – and it’s all because we’ve gotten a bit too comfortable for our own good.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S Subramanuam said awareness on prevention and early detection were the key to avoid these deaths.
“Fatty liver disease is seeing a rise along with non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension,” he was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times at the launch of the Selayang Hospital’s ‘Healthy liver Campaign’.
He said the rise in liver disease rates were a result of the public’s increasingly sedentary lifestyle. The most prevalent type of liver diseases in the country were fatty liver, liver cancer, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and alcoholic liver disease.
Subramaniam stated that to date, 63 liver transplants have successfully been done in Malaysia, with another 98 procedures on the waiting list.
“The main deterrent to conducting liver transplants was the lack of donors,” he said, adding that there was a rising trend of patients needing organ transplants.
Further complicating the situation is the fact that pledged donor livers could not be harvested, because they too had contracted various liver diseases.
He said the public’s misconception that liver disease was suffered only by those who consume alcohol or misuse drugs must change.
“Alcohol consumption is only one of the many causes.”
