Metabolic Health Is The New Cancer Prevention
Every year on the first Sunday of June, the world celebrates cancer survivors. And it should. The fact that a cancer diagnosis is no longer the automatic death sentence it was in 1988, when the first National Cancer Survivors Day was held, is one of medicine’s genuine triumphs (1). Survival rates have climbed. Treatments have […]
Food Safety: An Essential Ingredient for Better Health
Every year on 7 June, World Food Safety Day highlights the important role that safe food plays in protecting our health and well-being. While food safety is often associated with preventing food poisoning and foodborne illnesses, it is also a critical part of building healthier communities and supporting long-term health outcomes. At Eat Better South […]
Youth Month, Freedom and the Courage to Question
Each year, Youth Month provides an opportunity to reflect on one of the most significant moments in South Africa’s history and to honour the young people whose courage helped shape the country we live in today. For many South Africans, the events of 16 June 1976 are familiar. We learn about them at school, we […]
Men’s Health Month: Are We Talking About the Right Things?
If awareness alone were enough to improve health, this should be the healthiest generation in history. Information about nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress, and disease prevention has never been more accessible. Health campaigns occupy an increasingly prominent place on public health calendars, while social media provides a constant stream of advice, recommendations, and reminders about how […]
Finally, a Name that Matches the Condition!
One in eight women worldwide lives with a condition that has long been misunderstood, underdiagnosed, and stigmatised (1). For decades, it carried a name that misled both patients and doctors: Polycystic Ovary Syndrome, or PCOS (2). The name suggested cysts on the ovaries were central, when in fact many women diagnosed had no cysts at […]
Hypertension: The Health Risk You Can’t Feel- But Can Control
High blood pressure doesn’t announce itself with pain or discomfort. It creeps in silently, often unnoticed until it triggers something devastating, like a stroke, a heart attack, or kidney damage. That’s why hypertension is called the “silent killer.” Globally, more than a billion people live with it, and in South Africa, it is one of […]
Salt: Have We Been Asking the Wrong Question?
Each year, World Salt Awareness Week returns with a message that sounds settled, almost beyond debate: reduce salt intake for better health. It is often presented as one of the clearer areas of nutrition science, where the evidence is consistent and the guidance is straightforward. But nutrition has a long history of mistaking confidence for […]
World Move for Health Day: Rethinking the Snack
At The Noakes Foundation, we’ve never been fans of snacking. If food is doing what it is supposed to do, meals should be sufficient. Hunger should have a rhythm, not a constant presence, and the need to snack every few hours often says more about what we are eating than about how often we should […]
The Silent Killer: Stress May Be as Dangerous as Smoking Daily
April is observed as Stress Awareness Month, a time to pause, reflect, and confront one of the most pervasive yet often overlooked challenges of modern life, stress. While stress is a natural human response, growing evidence shows that chronic, unmanaged stress is one of the most significant threats to both physical and mental health today. […]
World Health Month: The Foods We Think Are Healthy
There is a quiet assumption that sits underneath many of our everyday food choices, and it rarely gets questioned. It is the idea that we can recognise what is healthy simply by looking at it, or by relying on how it has been positioned to us over time. Foods that feel familiar, convenient, or widely […]