Most Emailed Health News

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.

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 4 (HealthDay News) -- Want to be a happy married couple? Consider having kids.

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.

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.

DES MOINES, Iowa - A 13-year-old Iowa cat has been infected with swine flu, veterinary and federal officials said Wednesday, and it is believed to be the first case of the H1N1 virus in a feline.

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.

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.

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.

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.

BOSTON - Dr. James Wang says he tries to tell his patients when extra medical procedures aren't necessary. If they insist, though, he will do it — not so much to protect their health as his own practice.

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.

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.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch Philips Electronics is betting it can help doctors monitor patients remotely to keep an aging population healthier and battle rising medical costs.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Wednesday that pigs in a commercial herd in Indiana have tested positive for swine flu, making it the first time the virus has been found in such hogs.

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.

TUESDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) -- Low folate levels during pregnancy are associated with higher odds for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in offspring aged 7 to 9, new research has found.

Many consumers are feeling deceived now that SIGG has been outed for failing to tell the public that its bottles were not BPA-free, at least not the ones that were manufactured before August 2008

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.

TUESDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) -- A potentially deadly stomach infection is on the rise outside of hospital settings, especially among the elderly, researchers warn.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Swine flu can cause severe disease in people of all ages and appears to pose a special threat to those who are obese, according to an analysis of H1N1 cases in California released on Tuesday.

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.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States ranks 30th in terms of infant mortality, an important measure of the quality of healthcare, according to a report released on Tuesday.

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.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly a third of Americans who die are in the hospital at the time and their last treatments cost the U.S. economy $20 billion, according to a report released on Wednesday.