S’pore government to shoulder burden of medical care

HEALTH-CARE spending will go up as Singapore ages, and the Government will shoulder a larger burden of this to ensure medical care remains affordable, said Health Minister Gan Kim Yong. While some of the additional money will be spent on infrastructure, manpower and services, the rest will be on ‘very targeted help’, he said.

One key area is the fast-growing segment of older people.

The quiet healthcare revolution

While legislators talk about “bending the cost curve,” one company serving Medicare patients has discovered how to provide better care at lower cost—with wireless scales, free transportation, regular toenail trimmings, and doctors who put the patient first.

ELLEN, AN 82-YEAR-OLD widow, lives in Anaheim, California. One Wednesday morning last year, she got on her scale, as she does every morning. One hundred and forty-six pounds—wasn’t that a little high? Ellen felt vaguely troubled as she poured herself a bowl of oat bran.

Is food consumption today no longer sustainable?

Context

• ž Scarcity seems to be the new norm– climatic changes, peak demand for grain consumption, lack of arable land
• ž Steadily rising food prices eclipsing previous global highs in 2011 àmass starvation, political conflict  and prices beyond the reach of many communities
• žThe Millennium Development Goals of 2015 to halve the rate of extreme hunger – nowhere near being met. 1 billion people remain hungry.

Supermarkets add to food sources to steady prices

PRICES of Australian carrots sold in FairPrice supermarkets are set to remain at 85 to 95 cents for a 500g pack in the next two years. Singapore’s largest supermarket chain recently inked two-year contracts with two farms in Western Australia state to supply 52 million carrots – about 80 per cent of what it sells a year.

Hungry world will drive food prices even higher

FROM his office on the 11th storey of Suntec City Tower 2, Mr Sunny Verghese can look over much of the city centre.

Is junk food really cheaper?

THE “fact” that junk food is cheaper than real food has become a reflexive part of how we explain why so many Americans are overweight, particularly those with lower incomes. I frequently read confident statements like, “when a bag of chips is cheaper than a head of broccoli …” or “it’s more affordable to feed a family of four at McDonald’s than to cook a healthy meal for them at home.”

Faces of famine: the power of photography

Famine is sweeping across southern Somalia and sending a stream of desperate people into Mogadishu. Tens of thousands of children are said to be dying there, and there’s not enough help to meet the demand for food and medical care. The Shabab, the Islamic militant group with ties to Al-Qaeda, has made delivery of aid to remote areas, and even to the capital Mogadishu, not only difficult but also unreasonably slow, further reinforcing the crisis. 

Attacking the obesity epidemic

If you have gained a lot of unwanted pounds at any time during the last 30-odd years, you may be relieved to know that you are probably not to blame. At least not entirely.

Jamie Oliver calls for global action to tackle obesity

TV chef joins coalition of health experts and nutritionists urging UN to debate the issue at summit on disease

The underground world of neuro-enhancing drugs

A young man I’ll call Alex recently graduated from Harvard. As a history major, Alex wrote about a dozen papers a semester. He also ran a student organization, for which he often worked more than forty hours a week; when he wasn’t on the job, he had classes. Weeknights were devoted to all the schoolwork that he couldn’t finish during the day, and weekend nights were spent drinking with friends and going to dance parties. “Trite as it sounds,” he told me, it seemed important to “maybe appreciate my own youth.” Since, in essence, this life was impossible, Alex began taking Adderall to make it possible.