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Two years ago, the Health Promotion Board announced its aims to get smoking rates in Singapore down to 12% by 2020. Last December, four tobacco control proposals were raised for public consultation: raising the minimum age for smoking, banning additives in tobacco products, selling cigarettes in plain packaging, and enlarging graphic health warnings on packaging.Read more

With rising obesity and diabetes rates both globally and in Singapore, we need to keep our body weight in check to prevent risks of health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and heart disease. And it’s important to take note of sugar content in fresh fruit juice, which is comparable to that of sugar-sweetened beverages such as

Professor Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, delivered a talk as part of the School’s Public Health Thought Leadership Dialogue on Progress in Outbreak Preparedness – The Tasks Ahead on 22 February 2016. Professor Chia Kee Seng, Dean of the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health commenced the session

Increasing obesity rates in children and young adults are set to worsen already-high rates of diabetes in Singapore. Diabetes rates rose from 8.6% in Singaporean adults in 1992 to 11.3% in 2010, and would have gone up to 12.9% by last year, according to epidemiologists at the NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health.

A new local study by researchers from the Singapore Eye Research Institute (SERI) and Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC) may help doctors detect glaucoma, an often undiagnosed eye disease, earlier than usual. Researchers found that those with moderate to high myopia (above 300 degrees) and high eye pressure were more likely to develop primary open

We can expect to see 1 million Type 2 diabetics in Singapore by the year 2050, a statistic which will inevitably place burden on our healthcare system and workforce. Singapore also has the second highest proportion of diabetics in developed nations, with 10.53% of the population between 20 and 79 diagnosed with diabetes, a figure

The Zika virus epidemic has undoubtedly become one of the most talked-about topics within the public health sphere, with the World Health Organization (WHO) justifiably declaring it a global health emergency as coordinated global efforts are critically needed in research, vaccine development and international action. With Singapore drawing large numbers of overseas visitors and frequent international

Heavy taxes have been placed on harmful substances like tobacco and alcohol to discourage their consumption. Yet sugar, another addictive harmful substance, does not face these strict taxation measures. Sugar consumption has been well established by health experts as the single most harmful ingredient in the modern diet, contributing to illnesses like diabetes, heart, liver

Researchers from the National University of Singapore have found that consumption of palm oil led to higher levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, which translated into a 6 per cent higher risk of coronary heart disease and death. However, not all clinical trials on humans have shown a link between palm oil consumption and LDL

The Ministry of Health (MOH) recently announced the shelving of plans for Jade Circle, a pioneering model of care for dementia patients that proposes to house them in single or twin rooms. All subsidised beds and nursing homes in Singapore currently have six- to eight-bed dormitories for patients, and the only instance for a subsidised