Health | WPN World People News

Aid group Save the Children is highlighting progress in combating child mortality in many developing nations in Africa, while also warning of the need to address inequalities to help children have a better chance of surviving.

A gene important in skin tanning has been linked to higher risk for testicular cancer in white men, according to a study led by scientists from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the University of Oxford in England. Nearly 80 percent of white men carry a variant form of this gene, which increased risk of testicular cancer up to threefold in the study.

Researchers have begun the first definitive, large-scale clinical trial to investigate if a vitamin D supplement helps prevent or delay type 2 diabetes in adults who have prediabetes, who are at high risk for developing type 2. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the study is taking place at about 20 study sites across the United States.

Infection by the influenza virus may be more complicated than previously thought. Scientists say the pathogen appears to disarm the immune system’s first responders, which are the first line of defense against disease.