Page 24 - Malaysian Dietary Supplement Industry Status and Outlook Report 2019-2020 Preview
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Figure 1.3: Malaysia Population Healthy One way of measuring the cost of poor nutritional intake is
Life Years Lost Due to Disabilities from Poor the concept of disability-adjusted life year (DALY). DALY can
Diets, 2018. be thought as the number of healthy life years lost due to
disabilities caused by suboptimal nutritional intake.
Source: Eigis Analysis (Base Data: Global
Nutrition Report 2018). In the food categories that Malaysian diets are low in:
• DALYs from whole grains (nnn,nnn years), fruits
(nnn,nnn years), and nuts and seeds (nnn,nnn years)
are the largest.
• These are followed by DALYs from vegetables
(nnn,nnn years) and omega-3 foods (nnn,nnn years).
• The disability with the largest DALYs is ischemic
heart disease, i.e. reduced blood supply to the heart,
which ultimately leads to heart attacks.
• Nuts and seeds and omega-3 are the two largest
food sources attributing to the reduction of DALYs
linked to ischemic heart disease compared to the
other food sources listed.
Although proper nutritional intake alone does not guarantee
good health, the linkage between poor nutritional intake
and ill health is clear.
The solution seems straightforward: ensure that Malaysians
practice optimal nutritional intake. However, as with most
universal challenges, adoption is rarely easy due to a diverse
combination of social, cultural, and economic factors.
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