MANILA — While the Department of Health (DOH) continues to monitor COVID-19 and influenza-like illnesses, the agency’s greatest challenge now are the so-called lifestyle diseases, which are the top causes of death among Filipinos.

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“These are called lifestyle diseases because [they're] after your lifestyle: good eating, no exercise, obesity, it eventually gets to you by the time you're 50 or 60. So that's how Filipinos are dying,” said Health Secretary Ted Herbosa in an interview with ANC's Headstart.

Lifestyle diseases include heart attack, stroke, diabetes, and cancer.

“So, in essence ang daming problem, COVID is getting high but during the holiday season heart attack, diabetes, and stroke happen as well," he added.

Cardiologist Dr. Timothy Dy explained heart attack happens when a heart artery is blocked, while stroke results from a blocked or burst brain artery.

Major risk factors for the diseases include high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol, smoking, and genetics.

"If you have these risk factors, sometimes even if you lead a very healthy life, you could still be a victim of a heart attack. The other minor factors, if you look at gender, men will always be more likely to have heart attacks than women. We cannot change that. Age is also a factor. 70-year-olds are more likely to have a heart attack than the 40-year-olds," Dy told ABS-CBN News.

"The way we live our life also has an effect... Those who engage in regular physical activity will have less strokes and less heart attacks. Then people who eat healthy and generally follow a healthy lifestyle, those people are less likely to have heart attacks and strokes," he added.

But why are males more prone to heart attacks, compared to females?

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"It's an unknown. The original theory is that men in general have higher blood pressures than women. So they are more likely to develop hypertension. The physical stress and work seem to be higher in men, traditionally, than women. Gender roles are changing, year to year, decade to decade. A lot of these numbers were generated back to the 60s and 70s. But still if you take 100 people who have heart attacks, more than half - 60 to 70 percent - will still be men," Dy explained.

Dy shared there are some patients who are considered "outliers" -- those who are in their 30s to 50s, or sometimes teenage years -- because this does not happen very often in their age group, but they already have risk factors.

He said the amount of food that we eat also matters.

"The servings that we get, we go to a restaurant, and we order a dish, it generally is more than what we eat. And then we eat 3 times a day, sometimes may merienda pa, sometimes may midnight snack pa. Then nowadays, especially Christmas, you have to attend so many social occasions. I think our lifestyle in general is not very healthy. We also have people who exercise less and less over time," he explained.

'DISCIPLINE' FOR A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE

Herbosa appealed to the public: do everything in moderation.

"Bawal ang 'MA-foods': mataba, maalat, matamis, maalat... And it's also about moderation… Hindi din bawal tumikim. Once malasahan mo na, okay na iyon... It's nice to celebrate, but I don't want Filipinos to celebrate in the emergency room of hospitals," he said.

For Dy, it is not enough to have a desire to live a healthy life - what's more important is to actually have discipline.

"The only way to really live a healthy lifestyle is to really have discipline. Which means whatever you feel is healthy today, should be healthy every day," he added.

Stress should also be managed, he said.

"It's how we react to the things around us… Stress is not what the world does to us, it's how we interpret the things that the world does to us. For every source of stress, it's an opportunity to grow, get better," he added.

COVID VACCINE EFFICACY

Meanwhile, Health undersecretary Eric Tayag admitted the effectivity of COVID vaccines wane over time, but these still provide enough protection.

"Bumaba iyong antibodies, subalit ito naman ay sapat para maproteksyunan. Ang hindi natin alam ay kung ito ay tatagal ng ilan pang taon. Kaya nga maya't maya, ine-examine natin iyong ebidensya at kung kailangan magbigay ulit ng bagong booster," Tayag told Teleradyo Serbisyo.

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"Sa mga pag-aaral ngayon, magandang balita, hanggang sa ngayon, ang mga bakuna po ay nagbibigay pa rin ng proteksyon para hindi ma-ospital kahit na ang makuha po natin ay iyong mga bagong strain, mga bagong mutation," he added.

Pneumonia and flu vaccines are also available for senior citizens, and measles and rubella vaccines for children.