Higher risk of cancer in Thailand?

[dj230]

Not sure if anyone else has also noticed this but almost all of the people I am meeting in Thailand have a family member who has died or has been diagnosed with cancer. In Canada it was quite uncommon to know someone who has a family member who was diagnosed with cancer or has died from cancer.

 

Kind of shocking how common it is here and I was wondering if anyone else has noticed the same? 

 

 

[RobMuir]

They don't get on to it as quick here so more people die from it. Public hospitals are not Pro active especially towards poor people who can not pay.

Thalassemia is a big hereditary problem here, which you wouldn't have in Canada. They call it "blood cancer" but it is different to lukemia.

And if most of if your friends are from Issan, they have one of the highest rates of liver cancer in the world due to the freshwater "blaraa" that they eat which gives them liver fluke which progresses to cancer.

Plus a lot of the blokes, especially Issan blokes, are alcoholics on the LaoKao. Alcohol is a carcengenic.

And most blokes down south smoke tobacco. 

[dj230]

4 minutes ago, RobMuir said:

They don't get on to it as quick here so more people die from it. Public hospitals are not Pro active especially towards poor people who can not pay.

Thalassemia is a big hereditary problem here, which you wouldn't have in Canada. They call it "blood cancer" but it is different to lukemia.

And if most of if your friends are from Issan, they have one of the highest rates of liver cancer in the world due to the freshwater "blaraa" that they eat which gives them liver fluke which progresses to cancer.

Plus a lot of the blokes, especially Issan blokes, are alcoholics on the LaoKao. Alcohol is a carcengenic.

And most blokes down south smoke tobacco. 

surprisingly prevention is an issue in Canada too, I'm sure maybe more significant in Thailand than Canada, but there really isn't a test to detect cancer, you usually find it by accident.

I was looking into cancer diagnostics and asked my doctor about it, said there's no real way to test for cancer, all you can do is imaging but they wouldn't order imaging for you in Canada just to check your whole body for cancer every year. Typically over a certain age you get PSA test added to your bloodwork for prostate cancer detection and are recommended to do a colonoscopy after a certain age for colon cancer

 

I was just surprised how almost everyone I knew here has had a family member who has passed from cancer or currently has it. They're mostly from bangkok/chon buri/nonthaburi

[Convert54]

5 minutes ago, RobMuir said:

They don't get on to it as quick here so more people die from it. Public hospitals are not Pro active especially towards poor people who can not pay.

Thalassemia is a big hereditary problem here, which you wouldn't have in Canada. They call it "blood cancer" but it is different to lukemia.

And if most of if your friends are from Issan, they have one of the highest rates of liver cancer in the world due to the freshwater "blaraa" that they eat which gives them liver fluke which progresses to cancer.

Plus a lot of the blokes, especially Issan blokes, are alcoholics on the LaoKao. Alcohol is a carcengenic.

And most blokes down south smoke tobacco. 

Add to that the prolific use of herbicides and insecticides with zero protection while applying  and then consuming fish, shellfish, crabs from  residual water reserves with high concentrations of  residual chemicals.

[gummy]

On 9/18/2021 at 10:02 PM, RobMuir said:

They don't get on to it as quick here so more people die from it. Public hospitals are not Pro active especially towards poor people who can not pay.

Thalassemia is a big hereditary problem here, which you wouldn't have in Canada. They call it "blood cancer" but it is different to lukemia.

And if most of if your friends are from Issan, they have one of the highest rates of liver cancer in the world due to the freshwater "blaraa" that they eat which gives them liver fluke which progresses to cancer.

Plus a lot of the blokes, especially Issan blokes, are alcoholics on the LaoKao. Alcohol is a carcengenic.

And most blokes down south smoke tobacco. 

For someone who professes to speak Thai I am surprised at your misspelling.  It is transliterated as Pla ra  not blaraa.  And yes it stinks to high heaven but not the only suggested cause for high rates of liver cancer yet it is heart disease the highest death rate in Thailand like so many other countries.  Quite why liver cancer is quite high here is still not fully understood but nowhere near that of other countries so to say "they have one of the highest rates of liver cancer in the world" is misleading.

Also untrue in your statement is your inference that Issan has the highest rates., it has not, the South has higher rates so again another misleading opinion piece.

National and Subnational Population-Based Incidence of Cancer in Thailand: Assessing Cancers with the Highest Burdens (nih.gov)

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Smithydog
Removed Non-English writing as per rules

[RobMuir]

On 9/19/2021 at 6:18 AM, gummy said:

For someone who professes to speak Thai I am surprised at your misspelling.  It is transliterated as Pla ra  , not blaraa.  And yes it stinks to high heaven but not the only suggested cause for high rates of liver cancer yet it is heart disease the highest death rate in Thailand like so many other countries.  Quite why liver cancer is quite high here is still not fully understood but nowhere near that of other countries so to say "they have one of the highest rates of liver cancer in the world" is misleading.

Also untrue in your statement is your inference that Issan has the highest rates., it has not, the South has higher rates so again another misleading opinion piece.

National and Subnational Population-Based Incidence of Cancer in Thailand: Assessing Cancers with the Highest Burdens (nih.gov)

Not sure your point about my English spelling of a Thai word. If you want to get nitpicky the final vowel is long not short, so yours is wrong.

Anyway you are wrong again about the cancer. Sounds like you just have a bee in your bonnet and want to argue. 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/28/thai-doctor-fights-against-carcinogenic-raw-fish-dish-that-killed-his-parents

 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Smithydog
Edited quote to remove deleted words from original post and noted Moderator action

[gummy]

43 minutes ago, RobMuir said:

Not sure your point about my English spelling of a Thai word. If you want to get nitpicky the final vowel is long not short, so yours is wrong.

Anyway you are wrong again about the cancer. Sounds like you just have a bee in your bonnet and want to argue. 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/28/thai-doctor-fights-against-carcinogenic-raw-fish-dish-that-killed-his-parents

So sad you couldn't understand the Thai official health summarised report I posted, but never mind, didn't expect much else really, so its back to ignore for you, again.

[Convert54]

The sad fact is , regardless of debate as to geographic locality of the worst incidence of cancer in Thailand the fact remains there is a depressingly high incidence !

I have lost count of the number of relatively young people (predominantly male) who have died due to cancer of one form or other in my surrounding community. Certainly the numbers of  deaths challenge even those have died locally as the result of road accidents which are also depressingly too often..

 

[thai3]

Life expectancy for males is low here

According to the latest WHO data published in 2018 life expectancy in Thailand is: Male 71.8, female 79.3 and total life expectancy is 75.5 which gives Thailand a World Life Expectancy ranking of 69.