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. Endocrine disruptors were detected in children’s pro...

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 ...

A revised narcotics bill that goes into effect March 12 will give the green light to imports of medical cannabis for self-treatment under strict conditions. Under the revised law, cannabis derivatives that have been approved abroad for self-treatment purposes can be brought into South Korea through the Korea Orphan and Essential Drug Center, according to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. Pe...

More than 18,000 people died from sudden cardiac arrest without previous symptoms or warning signs in 2017 -- making it a bigger cause of death than lung cancer, at 17,980, and road traffic accidents, which killed 5,028 in the same year. According to data released by the Korea Centers for Disease Control Wednesday, 25,859 people died from sudden cardiac arrest in 2017. Excluding accidental and s...

CHICAGO (AP) — Fish oil, vitamin D, novel drugs, new cholesterol guidelines: News from an American Heart Association conference over the weekend reveals a lot about what works and what does not for preventing heart attacks and other problems. Dietary supplements missed the mark, but a prescription-strength fish oil showed promise. A drug not only helped people with diabetes control blood sugar a...

South Koreans rank first among major economies in terms of visits made to hospitals in 2016, government data showed. According to the data by the National Health Insurance Service, South Koreans visited the doctor's office an average of 17 times in 2016, much higher than the average of 6.9 times by citizens of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development member countries. Japan came...

It has been a decade since South Korea started issuing short-term visas for foreigners seeking medical treatment here as part of measures to boost medical tourism. Since then, the medical tourism market has expanded rapidly, with the number of annual foreign visitors for medical treatment here rising 52.2 percent in the four years through 2017 to some 321,600, according to data compiled by the K...

An increase in working hours among women reduces the chance of them getting pregnant, a report showed Tuesday. According to the report by the National Assembly Budget Office, the chance of conceiving a baby is reduced by 0.34 percentage point for every additional hour a married woman works per week. The report was based on five sets of surveys conducted on women between 2007 and 2014 about work...