- Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments,
compiled by editors of HealthDay:

Minorities More Likely to Suffer Corporal
Punishment in Schools

Minority children received a disproportionate share of the corporal
punishment given to 223,190 American school children last year, says a
study released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil
Liberty Union.

Black and [...]

An overweight patient is seen at a weight loss hospital in a file photo. (Andrew Wong/Reuters)

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — Vigabatrin, a medication
that holds potential as a treatment for drug addiction, has been found to
cause rapid weight loss in animals.

A study done by U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National
Laboratory found that [...]

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — It may be time to add
calcium to the types of tastes — sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory —
that can be detected by humans, according to U.S. researchers.

They found that a taste for calcium exists in mice. Since mice and
humans share many of the same genes, the [...]

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — A protein that induces
bone growth also helps promote development of “good” brown fat that helps
burn calories and plays a role in fighting obesity, says researchers at
the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.

They said their finding about the protein, called BMP-7, may help lead
to new ways to prevent and [...]

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — If you're a minor or
already drunk, many vendors in American sports stadiums will still gladly
sell you a beer or other alcoholic beverage.

That's the finding from a new study that suggests stadiums aren't doing
enough to keep booze away from those who shouldn't drink.

People who clearly appeared underage were [...]

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — Alcoholism is associated
with delayed childbearing in women, according to a study that compared
women's and men's lifetime history of alcohol dependence and their age
when they had their first child.

The researchers analyzed data from two groups of Australian twins born
between 1893-1964 (3,634 female and 1,880 male twins) [...]

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — A modified form of MRI may
help diagnosis osteoarthritis at an early stage when it may be possible to
prevent or reduce permanent joint damage, say U.S. researchers.

Current diagnostic methods don't detect osteoarthritis until it's in
advanced stages. In this new approach, MRI is used to determine the
concentration of a [...]

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — Researchers who last year
reported a possible link between cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and
cancer now say that further analysis has disproved such an association.

Statin medications include such blockbusters as Crestor, Lipitor,
Pravachol and Zocor.

“The bottom line is that there is no evidence from this work, the
largest study published to date, [...]

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — Researchers have
identified an “odor profile” for skin cancer, with an eye toward
developing a fast, simple and noninvasive test to diagnose the most common
form of skin cancer in the United States.

“We found that the odor profile coming from the skin of skin cancer
patients was markedly different than that [...]

- WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) — Women who've experienced
the pregnancy complication known as preeclampsia face a much greater risk
of end-stage renal disease, new research suggests.

In fact, says the report in the Aug. 21 issue of the New England
Journal of Medicine, the rate of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) was
between 3.2 and 15.5 times greater [...]