The World Health Organization says the number of people with tuberculosis has fallen for the first time. In a report issued, the WHO estimated 8.8 million people fell ill last year, dropping from a peak of about 9 million in 2005. Officials said fewer people are now dying from the disease, but that a third
Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said private healthcare was a brutal system because it had commercialized an essential service. “How can we run such a brutal system… the government will not fold its arms when there is such rampant commercialisation in the healthcare sector,” he said at a general practitioners’ meeting in Durban. He said the use of
Vitamins are often taken by the people who need them least, a new study suggests. The study showed that people who take mineral supplements also to get more nutrients from their food than those who don’t take supplements. Indeed, in some cases, supplement users may be getting too much of a good thing by overloading
Get lean and toned by swapping these overrated fitness strategies for smarter alternatives. BY STEVE MAZZUCCHI. Unlike wine, cheese and Clive Owen, workout strategies don’t get better with age. That’s because each year, fitness researchers release thousands of studies that challenge conventional thinking – or at least shed light on ways to tweak it. We’ve identified nine stale fitness
Water is an essential nutrient for life and is considered the ideal drink to quench thirst and ensure hydration. But what should our total daily fluid intake be? In healthy adults, fluid intake is regulated by thirst. Water is an essential nutrient for life and is considered the ideal drink to quench thirst and ensure hydration. Ironically,
Malpractice concerns influence many testing decisions, US physicians say. When it comes to medical care, nearly half of US primary care physicians believe their own patients are over-treated. A national mail survey of 627 doctors randomly selected from the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile showed that 42% believe patients in their own practice get too
People may be learning while they’re sleeping – an unconscious form of memory that is still not well understood, according to a study by Michigan State University researchers. The findings are highlighted in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. “We speculate that we may be investigating a separate form of memory, distinct from traditional memory systems,”
Call us politically incorrect, but just as there are some types of guy you wouldn’t want your sister dating, there are some types of woman you should steer clear of. See whether you recognise any of these. She looks like Alyssa Milano and her folks like you. But you keep wishing you could transplant the
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like diabetes, cause a quarter of deaths in South Africa, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi said. “Globally, deaths due to NCDs are projected to increase by 17% over the next 10 years, but the greatest increase of 24% is expected in the African region,” he said in Johannesburg. He reported that a non-communicable disease summit
Synthetic drugs have overtaken heroin and cocaine to become the second most widely consumed drugs in the world, the UN office on drugs and crime (UNODC) reported. “After cannabis, ATS (amphetamine-type stimulants) are the second most widely used drugs across the globe, outstripping the use of heroin or cocaine,” the UN agency said in its annual ATS report. Amphetamine-type