KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry has called for the setting up of a exercise clinic in all districts in the country to encourage behavioral change to reduce the risk of getting Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), which is on the rise.
Its deputy minister, Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya , said this was important as an estimated 73 per cent of the total death in government hospitals were due to NCDs.
“Exercise therapy through exercise clinics has the potential to help prevent NCDs through the prescription of right amount of exercise,” he told Bernama.
Exercise therapy has the potential of treating and preventing four main NCDs, namely hypertension, diabetes, obesity and dyslipidemia, through prescription of the right kind of therapy.
The therapy, which has the potential to be an alternative remedy to conventional medicine in preventing NCDs, had proven to produce many positive changes to the human body, if executed in the right manner.
Dr Hilmi said the ministry would collaborate with the private sector under the National Blue Ocean Strategy (NBOS) initiative to raise public awareness on the importance of adopting a healthy lifestyle by going to exercise clinics.
He said he had visited MS New Symphony Exercise Clinic, said to be the first exercise clinic in Malaysia, in Bukit Jalil on Jan 16.
The clinic, which provides a range of services to help people prevent chronic diseases features a fully computerised exercise prescription protocol to treat and intervene border line NCDs with the right amount of exercise.
Meanwhile, an exercise therapist, Prof Dr Lee Chee Peng said Malaysia would host the 2nd World Conference on Exercise Medicine (WCEM) in Malacca in September this year.
Lee, who is vice chairman of WCEM, said the conference would gather exercise scientists, physicians, therapists and coaches to deliberate on exercise medicine, which was increasingly gaining acceptance among Malaysians. — Bernama