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. (Y...

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...

For the first time, one of the new immunotherapy drugs has shown promise against breast cancer in a large study that combined it with chemotherapy to treat an aggressive form of the disease. But the benefit for most women was small, raising questions about whether the treatment is worth its high cost and side effects. Results were discussed Saturday at a cancer conference in Munich and published...

The overall number of hospital beds and medical equipment in South Korea exceeded other major economies, while the number of doctors was lowest, data has showed. South Korea had an average of 12 beds per every 1,000 people in 2016, compared with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development average of 4.7, according to data provided by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Nat...

Lowering into a lunge, stretch your left arm up. Close your eyes and concentrate on the balance. Then, with your right arm, grab a beer and take a sip, perfecting the “sun salutation” pose It has been a while since “beer yoga” arrived in Korea, after being embraced by Berlin hipsters. Beer yoga class is held at PGA Golf Academy in southern Seoul on Saturday. (Almondon) A one-day beer yoga clas...

Cancer remained the leading cause of death in South Korea in 2017, with heart-related illnesses second, government data showed. A total of 285,534 South Koreans died in 2017, up 1.7 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Korea. Of all deaths reported last year, 78,863 people died of cancer, or 27.6 percent of the total, making it the leading cause of death in Asia’s f...

Cancer will kill nearly 10 million people this year, experts said Wednesday, warning the disease's global burden continues to rise in spite of better prevention and earlier diagnosis. An estimated 18.1 million new cancer cases were predicted worldwide for 2018 -- with 9.6 million deaths, said a report of the International Agency for Research on Cancer. This is up from estimated 14.1 million new...

The number of South Koreans treated for depression last year rose 15.8 percent from five years before, government data showed. Some 681,000 patients were treated for depression last year, up from 588,000 tallied in 2012, according to the data compiled by the National Health Insurance Service. While the number for women grew 12.1 percent from 406,000 to 455,000, the comparable figure for men ...

Oriental medicine expert introduces what summer food to eat and avoid according to body type

The health ministry is pushing to enlarge the size of graphic warning images on cigarette packs, officials said Sunday, a move aimed at discouraging people from smoking. The Ministry of Health and Welfare said it plans to announce the measure in September or October to send a stronger message to smokers by expanding the size of the warning images from the current 50 percent of the package's exte...

'Blood types important in blood transfusion but exact role of antigens remain scientifically unproved with no proof of correlation with diseases’