NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Heart attacks occur earlier in people who are overweight or obese, compared with normal-weight people, new research indicates.

“Obesity has overtaken smoking as the leading cause of premature heart attacks,” senior investigator Dr. Peter A. McCullough told Reuters Health. “Since two thirds of Americans have excess body fat we expect an explosion [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
A novel stroke education program that uses hip-hop music to teach 9- to 11-year-olds living in a high-risk community to recognize when a person is having a stroke and summon help quickly can work, researchers have found.

“Hip-Hop Stroke” incorporates into rap lyrics the “FAST” mnemonic - that is, that changes in [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Women who tend to keep a tight rein on their eating gain more weight during pregnancy than their peers who are more relaxed about eating, new research confirms.

Women are getting this message — “oh, now you're pregnant, you're free to eat whatever you want,” Dr. Anna Maria Siega-Riz, of the University [...]

A woman smells a glass of red wine from Spain during a tasting session at Vinexpo Asia-Pacific, the International Wine and Spirits Exhibition for the Asia-Pacific region, in Hong Kong May 28, 2008. (Victor Fraile/Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
Drinking red wine, but not white wine, may reduce lung cancer risk, especially among current and ex-smokers, [...]

This photo dated 2003 shows Africa's first cloned cow named Fut in Brits, 65km northwest of Johannesburg. Europeans are generally opposed to meat from cloned animals, feeling not enough is known about the long-term effects of eating it, according to an EU survey published Thursday.(AFP/File/Alexander Joe)

BRUSSELS (AFP) -
Europeans are generally opposed to meat from cloned [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
An outbreak of Listeria food poisoning from a Massachusetts dairy killed three elderly men, caused the stillbirth of a baby and the premature birth of a second baby, U.S. health officials reported on Thursday.

They said the outbreak, while rare, demonstrates how difficult it can be to even detect, let alone trace, foodborne illness. [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -
The results of a survey in Oregon suggest that the Death with Dignity Act enacted in the state in 1997 does not always prevent patients with depression, a treatable condition, from receiving a prescription for a lethal drug.

The findings indicate that “most people in Oregon who request physician aid in dying [...]

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Asthma control in over one in three children with asthma is not as good as it could be, and in many cases the suboptimal control relates to potentially modifiable beliefs of the parents, new research suggests.

In a study of 754 children between 2 and 12 years old with persistent asthma, [...]

PARIS (AFP) - Un “train du coeur” va parcourir la France jusqu’au 20 octobre, avec des étapes dans 13 villes, pour sensibiliser les acteurs politiques et économiques ainsi que le grand public à l’installation de défibrillateurs cardiaques.
Inaugurée mardi Gare de Lyon à Paris, en présence de la ministre de la Santé, Roselyne Bachelot, cette exposition [...]

PARIS (AFP) - La ministre de la Santé, Roselyne Bachelot, a jugé jeudi “impératif” de réduire les temps de transport des personnes frappées d’accident vasculaire cérébral (AVC) et d’orienter ces patients vers des structures adaptées à leur état, disposant notamment d’IRM ou de scanner.
S’exprimant devant le congrès de la Société française de neurologie à Paris, [...]