Characterization of Chinese body skin through in vivo instrument assessments, visual evaluations, and questionnaire: influences of body area, inter-generation, season, sex, and skin care habits.

Background/purpose: The varying influence of multiple factors (e.g., aging, sex, season, skin care habits) on skin structure and function necessitates study within ethnic groups to fully characterize their skin.

Effects of catechin enriched green tea on body composition.

Obesity is a major health problem in the developed and developing world. Many "functional" foods and ingredients are advocated for their effects on body composition but few have consistent scientific support for their efficacy. However, an increasing amount of mechanistic and clinical evidence is building for green tea (GT).

Purified black tea theaflavins and theaflavins/catechin supplements did not affect serum lipids in healthy individuals with mildly to moderately elevated cholesterol concentrations.

Background: Ingestion of tea flavonoids found in both green and black tea is linked to cardiovascular health benefits such as lowering serum lipids. Evidence for a cholesterol-lowering benefit of green or black tea consumption from human intervention studies is, however, conflicting and active components responsible for the effect have not yet been clearly identified.

Aim Of The Study: In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel design study the effects of ingesting a purified black tea theaflavins (TFs) powder alone or in combination with catechin (TFs/catechins) on lowering serum total (TC) and LDL-cholesterol (LDL-c) were assessed.

An observational study describing the geographic-time distribution of cardiac arrests in Singapore: what is the utility of geographic information systems for planning public access defibrillation? (PADS Phase I).

Introduction: Public access defibrillation (PAD) has shown potential to increase cardiac arrest survival rates.

Objectives: To describe the geographic epidemiology of prehospital cardiac arrest in Singapore using geographic information systems (GIS) technology and assess the potential for deployment of a PAD program.

Methods: We conducted an observational prospective study looking at the geographic location of pre-hospital cardiac arrests in Singapore.

Squamous cell carcinoma and Bowen's disease of the skin in Singapore.

Introduction: Non-melanoma skin cancer is one of the commonest cancers in Singapore and worldwide. The aim of our study was to evaluate the demographic and clinicopathological patterns of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and Bowen's disease (BD) of the skin, in order to better understand the characteristics of these tumours in our population.

Materials And Methods: Histologically proven cases of SCC and BD seen at our centre between 2002 and 2003 were retrospectively analysed according to age, sex, race, predisposing factors such as immunosuppression and ultraviolet therapy, site and size of tumour, histological differentiation and subtype, and treatment method.

Out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occurring in primary health care facilities in Singapore.

Objectives: To study out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OHCA) occurring in primary healthcare facilities (HCF) in Singapore and to compare these with arrests occurring in the community.

Methods: This prospective observational study was part of the Cardiac Arrest and Resuscitation Epidemiology (CARE) project. Included were all patients with OHCA occurring in HCF.