Recovery room with a view

There are many reasons to visit the Mother City. We have the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, a whole host of incredible beaches, the Waterfront, Table Mountain, the Constantia wine route, a penguin colony, antique stores aplenty, colourful street performers, a laughably good exchange rate and the bulk of South Africa’s worthwhile restaurants and dining establishments (to name but a few). In light of all of this, it would seem strange that many people from around the globe come to Cape Town expressly to take advantage our medical establishments, doctors and rehabilitation facilities, yet they do.

Medical tourism is becoming a booming trade. Places like Panama, Brazil, Malaysia, Costa Rica and India have been tapping this particular vein for a number of years, and it seems South Africa is pretty keen to join the party. (For the uninitiated: the term ‘medical tourism’ relates to a branch of the travelling industry that allows foreigners to combine affordable plastic- or reconstructive surgery with pre- and post-operative forays around the country).

Not a big fan of gratuitous elective plastic surgery myself, I can still understand why foreigners name South Africa as a preferred medical tourism destination. Let’s tick the relevant points, shall we? We have:

1. A favourable exchange rate (my aunt and uncle from America recently had dental work done in Cape Town and their whole trip, including flights, transport, accommodation and the actual cost of the procedures came to around four times less than they would’ve paid for the same treatment in California).
2. High quality medical care facilities.
3. World renowned surgeons and physicians (remember the whole heart transplant thing?).
4. Incredibly scenic surrounding in which to recuperate.
5. Reputable establishments that facilitate medical tourism trips. This includes everything from flights to airport transfers, consultations with surgeons, the actual surgery, a recuperation period in the locale of your choice, as well as pre- and post-operative trips around sunny South Africa.

Basically what you’re looking at is First World health care at Third World prices. What’s not to love about that? Accommodation venues include the likes of five star Constantia and Camps Bay hotels, as well as the beautiful Arabella Sheraton. After your surgery, you can then decide whether you would like to go on a tour of the Winelands, enjoy a Big Five Safari tour or participate in a thorough exploration of the country’s most illustrious golf courses. South Africa is quite literally your oyster (especially if you happen to be around Knysna while to Oyster Festival is underway).

So, there you have it – one more reason to include Cape Town in your global itinerary.

In fact the count of overweight people worldwide has now reached the billion mark – and with more and more children becoming obese each year that number is increasing steadily all the time.

The international standard for determining obesity is the body-mass index (BMI).

This is one’s weight (in kilograms) divided by the square of one’s height (in meters).

Of the billion overweight people, an unhealthy 30% are clinically obese. In the USA 30% of the entire population are obese. African Americans have the lion’s share of this percentage, at 45%. Comparatively in Germany the obesity figure is almost half, at 12%, while the Italians have a modest 8% in the extreme overweight bracket. At either end of the extreme percentages we have China at a low average of 5% while Samoa exceeds a frightening 75%.

These statistics were shared at the recent conference in Boston, Massachusetts, where around 2 000 delegates met for 4 days to discuss the treatment and prevention of obesity. The event was hosted by NAASO – The North American Society for the Study of Obesity.

Although obesity is less severe in Europe than in the States, the numbers are still expanding at a steady pace. For example, in France, with a population of just over 60 million, 5.9 million people are obese today. This is concerning when compared with the figure of 3.6% a decade ago. 

The effects of obesity are far greater than the individual loss of self esteem. The resultant health and economic problems impact heavily on local economies and experts fear that with the problem growing at such an alarming rate it could eventually cripple the worst-hit countries’ economies.

With obesity being recognized as a global epidemic by the WHO, it is sobering to compare the billion overweight of the world’s total 6 billion population, with the 800 million who do not have enough to eat.

Now that’s some food for thought.

And the Cambridge-based company receiving the grant is certainly looking ‘ahead’ to finding a cure!

Biosciences firm, Intercytex, is building a robot to help treat the predominantly male problem of baldness which is triggered by the male hormone, dihydrotestosterone. While often the butt of jokes, baldness can cause a range of psychological issues to individuals, including lower self-esteem and resultant relationship problems.

Using technologically advanced methods, the robot removes hair follicles from the back of the patient’s neck, multiplies them and replants them in the balding regions of the head.

The use of robotics will help to speed up the otherwise slow process of cell multiplication.

Says Intercytex chief executive, Nick Higgins: “We take cells responsible for hair growth, multiply them and then inject them in the head. We tease out the cells responsible for growing a new hair.

“The challenge is to make sure they grow thick enough and quick enough so they are cosmetically acceptable.”

The safety of the procedure has so far been ascertained on a small number of volunteers. The research is now in its Intermediate Phase.

The procedure itself involves a half-hour operation under anesthesia and then a three week waiting period while the cells are grown. The replanting can then happen, once again in surgery.