As the population ages, the number of South Koreans with dementia has soared in recent years and so have associated costs, data showed. In 2018, dementia-related medical spending exceeded the 2 trillion won ($1.67 billion) threshold for the first time. According to the data provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare to Rep. Kim Kwang-soo, the number of people diagnosed with various forms o...

Smokers of the younger generations face challenges disparate from those troubling previous generations, giving rise to the need for renewed countermeasures suited to the contemporary smoking scene, according to health experts. The smoking rate has been on the decline in Korea, with the percentage of male adult smokers – who account for the majority of smoking demographics – hitting a record low ...

A woman, 79, who received a partial artificial heart transplant has lived for over 1,000 days since surgery, Samsung Medical Center said Wednesday. The patient was fitted with the then-latest third-generation left ventricular assist device in September 2016. This is the longest a patient has lived with a third-generation heart assist device in South Korea, according to the hospital. The hospita...

Sales of cigarettes in South Korea edged down 0.6 percent in the first half of 2019 from a year prior, data showed, amid an anti-smoking campaign and higher prices. South Korean smokers purchased 1.67 billion 20-cigarette packs in the January-June period, compared to 1.68 billion packs in the same period last year, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The figure...

Facebook group allows expats to share tips on air quality, how to protect themselves

More than 1 in 10 senior citizens in South Korea suffer from dementia, data showed. According to the data from the National Institute of Dementia, 748,945 South Koreans aged 65 and above suffered from dementia as of 2018 last year. That figure is expected to grow to 2.18 million by 2040, 3.03 million by 2050 and 3.32 million by 2060 as the population continues to age.

The death rate from cancer in South Korea has been on the rise every year, according to the Korea Insurance Development Institute. The number of life insurance subscribers who died of cancer increased from 18,144 in 2008 to 19,560 in 2010, 21,179 in 2012, 23,213 in 2015 and 24,940 in 2017, data showed. By total number of deaths, the deadliest cancers were of the lungs, liver, stomach, pancre...

Vibrio vulnificus, a strain of necrotizing bacteria, was detected in seawaters off the west coast of Gyeonggi Province, the province’s Health and Environment Research Institute said Tuesday. Three of the 38 seawater and 33 wetland mud samples tested positive for the bacteria on April 29. About 50 cases of the bacterial infections occur nationwide every year, with nearly half of those infected d...

About 130,000 children’s products were found to contain endocrine disruptors during customs clearance procedures, a Korea Customs Service report showed Friday. KCS and the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards jointly performed a safety evaluation on children’s products for two months starting in March, ahead of the May 5 Children’s Day. (Korea Customs Service) Endocrine disruptors were d...

Global life expectancy grew by 5.5 years between 2000 and 2016, the World Health Organization said, warning though that unequal income and access to health care translates into far shorter lives for many. The UN health agency also stressed significant gender differences in life expectancy worldwide. On average, a child born in 2016 can expect to live 72 years, up from 66.5 in 2000, according...

One in 5 deaths globally is linked to poor diet, experts said, warning that overconsumption of sugar, salt and meat is killing millions of people every year. The United Nations estimates that nearly a billion people worldwide are malnourished, while nearly 2 billion are “overnourished.” But the latest study on global diet trends, published in The Lancet, showed that in nearly every one of th...

Poor air quality caused more than 17,000 deaths in South Korea in 2017, more than 90 percent of which resulted from the onslaught of harmful PM2.5 particles, a study released by a US civic group showed. The “State of Global Air 2019” report, published by the Health Effects Institute, revealed that about 17,300 people died from indoor and outdoor air pollution in Korea in 2017, up 23.5 percent ...

South Korea saw reports of medication side effects gain about 2 percent in 2018, although their rate of growth slowed sharply from the prior year, data showed. Local health authorities handled 257,438 cases of side effects from taking medicine last year, up 1.9 percent from the previous year, according to data from the Korea Institute of Drug Safety & Risk Management. By drug, aspirin, phena...

Foreigners visiting South Korea for medical treatment are largely satisfied with the services they receive, a poll showed. Foreign patients gave an average rating of 90.5 out of 100 for the level of care they received in 2018, with numbers generally climbing over the years, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare. Patients from Russia gave the Korean health care industry the highest ...

Of the global surge in measles last year, just 10 countries accounted for three-quarters of all cases, the UN children’s agency said, including one of the world’s richest nations, France. Ninety-eight countries reported more cases of measles in 2018 compared with 2017, and the world body warned that conflict, complacency and the growing anti-vaccine movement threatened to undo decades of work ...