Most Emailed Health News

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

SATURDAY, Oct. 31 (HealthDay News) -- A drug designed to fight anemia appears to double the risk of stroke in patients with diabetes and kidney disease without substantially improving their quality of life, a new study finds.

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.

SIAYA, Kenya - A mother watched with dread as a nurse inserted a tube in her baby's head. Blood streamed into the anemic 4-month-old who already has malaria, the mosquito-borne disease that kills a million African children every year.

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.

SYDNEY (Reuters Life!) - Bad moods can actually be good for you, with an Australian study finding that being sad make people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory.

TUESDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Experts have long known that "low-tar" and "light" cigarettes aren't any healthier than regular cigarettes, and new research suggests they have another drawback: People who switch to them are less likely to quit, even those who switch specifically because they want to stop smoking.

LVIV, Ukraine - Russia and Slovakia tightened their borders with Ukraine on Tuesday as the World Health Organization began investigating a suspected swine flu outbreak.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An outbreak of food-borne illness, linked to dangerous bacteria in ground beef, sickened 28 people and may have caused two deaths in the U.S. Northeast, health officials said on Monday.

Men may protect more than their hearts if they keep cholesterol in line: Their chances of getting aggressive prostate cancer may be lower, new research suggests.

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.

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.

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.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Nearly 70 percent of adults in the U.S. report having at least one day of insufficient rest or sleep per month, suggests a new survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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.

MONDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Though someone is diagnosed with diabetes every 20 seconds, many Americans lack basic knowledge about the potentially life-threatening disease, according to a new survey from the American Diabetes Association.

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.

ATLANTA - Premature births, often due to poor care of low-income pregnant women, are the main reason the U.S. infant mortality rate is higher than in most European countries, a government report said Tuesday.

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.

MONDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Taking antibiotics during pregnancy does not raise the risk for most birth defects, though there are some exceptions, new research has found.

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.

MONDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- Middle-aged adults whose parents have Alzheimer's disease are at increased risk for high blood pressure, evidence of arterial disease and markers of inflammation -- all of which may be associated with later development of Alzheimer's disease.

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.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who get the recommended amount of fiber in their diets may have lower estrogen levels and ovulate less often than women who eat less fiber, a new study suggests.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Pregnant women and other people at high risk should be vaccinated against the H1N1 swine flu virus as the cold weather begins to bite in the northern hemisphere, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A person's long-term risk of heart disease is better assessed by a pair of studies, as performing only one may miss a dangerous buildup of calcium in arteries, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

TUESDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Reports about possible kidney problems, including renal failure, in people taking the diabetes drug exenatide (Byetta) have prompted changes to the drug's prescribing information, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Monday.

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

CHICAGO (Reuters Life!) - Low total cholesterol may be a sign of cancer rather than a cause, as some researchers have suggested, and men who have low cholesterol actually have a lower risk of developing high-risk prostate cancer, two teams reported on Tuesday.

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.