Most Emailed Health News

SATURDAY, Oct. 31 (HealthDay News) -- Subliminal messages are most effective when they have negative words, English researchers say.

THURSDAY, Oct. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Are you a bad driver? Maybe you can blame it on your genes.

LONDON (AFP) - A diet heavy in processed and fatty foods increases the risk of depression, according to research published on Monday.

KIEV, Ukraine - Urging its citizens not to panic, Ukraine on Monday closed the nation's schools for a week to avoid the spread of swine flu and suggested that nightclubs, cinemas and food markets in the west also shut down.

BOSTON/LONDON (Reuters) - Human Genome Sciences Inc said its experimental lupus drug Benlysta eased symptoms in more than 43 percent of patients who took it in a clinical trial, paving the way for approval of the first new treatment for the disease in 50 years.

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 28 (HealthDay News) -- Letting children sleep late on weekends and holidays might help them avoid becoming overweight or obese, a new study suggests.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An outbreak of food-borne illness, linked to dangerous bacteria in ground beef, sickened 28 people and caused at least one death, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.

FRIDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- That extra hour of sleep you'll get in most parts of the country on Sunday might be restful, but the end of Daylight Saving Time could spell trouble for your body clock, a sleep expert says.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The more TV a 3-year-old watches, the more likely he or she is to behave aggressively, a new study shows.

CHICAGO - Nearly half of all U.S. children and 90 percent of black youngsters will be on food stamps at some point during childhood, and fallout from the current recession could push those numbers even higher, researchers say.

WASHINGTON - A senior adviser to President Barack Obama says the government will catch up to the demand for swine flu vaccine within a week.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A more protective form of Pfizer's vaccine for pneumococcal disease would be highly effective at preventing deaths from pandemic influenza, independent researchers and the company reported over the weekend.

FRIDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Pregnant women head the list of people who should get H1N1 swine flu and seasonal flu shots, and four new studies highlight the benefits of vaccination for moms-to-be and their babies.

THURSDAY, Oct. 29 (HealthDay News) -- Want to improve that osteoarthritis in your knee? New research suggests that regular Tai Chi exercise can reduce pain and help your knee function better.

KORSOER, Denmark - The world's largest cruise ship has cleared a crucial obstacle on its way to Florida, lowering its smokestacks to squeeze under a bridge in Denmark.

LONDON (Reuters) - Nearly a million people die from malaria each year because they cannot afford the most effective treatment and instead often buy old drugs to which the malaria parasite has become resistant, researchers said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives plan to offer an alternative to Democrats' massive healthcare reform bill that would not raise taxes or require people or businesses to buy health insurance, the House Republican leader said on Sunday.

WASHINGTON - Nurses were training women in rural Mexico to examine their breasts for cancer when one raised her hand to object. If she lost her breast, Harvard public health specialist Felicia Knaul recalls the woman saying, "My man would leave me" — and with him, the family's income.

CHICAGO - Researchers studying antibiotics in pregnancy have found a surprising link between common drugs used to treat urinary infections and birth defects. Reassuringly, the most-used antibiotics in early pregnancy — penicillins — appear to be the safest.

WASHINGTON - A single dose of the swine flu vaccine works well for almost all pregnant women, but young children will still need two doses for best results, federal health officials said Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Up to 30 million doses of vaccine against the pandemic H1N1 flu have been delivered to the U.S. government and production is now picking up, officials said on Monday.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Ten years and $2.5 billion in research have found no cures from alternative medicine. Yet these mostly unproven treatments are now mainstream and used by more than a third of all Americans. This is one in an occasional Associated Press series on their use and potential risks.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Mothers with young children and pregnant women are being turned away from swine flu vaccination clinics in the United States, some in tears, many utterly frustrated by the shortage of vaccine.

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 28 (HealthDay News) -- Transcendental meditation reduces stress and improves the emotional and mental well-being of breast cancer patients, new study findings suggest.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Some of the antibiotics used to treat urinary tract infections during pregnancy may increase the risk of several birth defects if a woman uses them early in pregnancy, a new study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine shows.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Worried about what to do with fat you've had liposuctioned from pudgy areas? Researchers have turned it into stem cells in the lab, but here's a more immediate use: Fat liposuctioned from other parts of the body can safely be used to increase a woman's breast size, according to study findings presented this week at the Plastic Surgery 2009 meeting in Seattle.

FRIDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Illness and surgery don't contribute to long-term cognitive decline in seniors and don't accelerate progression of dementia, researchers say.

FRIDAY, Oct. 30 (HealthDay News) -- Children born to mothers who ate plenty of vegetables during pregnancy are less likely to have type 1 diabetes, Swedish researchers say.

SUNDAY, Nov. 1 (HealthDay News) -- New research holds bad news for health officials worried about a potentially lethal infection called MRSA that haunts hospitals: A strain that infects the bloodstream is five times more deadly than other strains.