Health | WPN World People News

It's no secret that the world's population is aging, even in developing countries. That's why the World Health Organization is celebrating its own birthday this year with an observance focused on strategies for healthy, active aging.

The country's youngest are increasingly infected by a more lethal strain of the hand-foot-and-mouth disease

Insights into how the first vaccine ever reported to modestly prevent HIV infection in people might have worked were published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Scientists say the effects of climate change could actually make breathing more difficult for many people. They expect rising temperatures to bring an increase in cases of asthma and allergies, as well as infectious and cardiovascular diseases.

Two new studies have found that gastric surgery can vastly improve or possibly reverse Type 2 diabetes, even in people whose condition is severe.

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered how exposure to arsenic can turn normal stem cells into cancer stem cells and spur tumor growth.

Researchers have turned up a new clue to the workings of a possible environmental factor in autism spectrum disorders (ASDs): fathers were four times more likely than mothers to transmit tiny, spontaneous mutations to their children with the disorders.

A technique combining computer-based pattern recognition and brain imaging data accurately distinguished teens at risk for mental disorders from those with low risk and may someday be useful in predicting risk in individuals, according to an NIMH-funded study published February 15, 2012, in the journal PLoS One.

Overall, the U.S. population has good levels of vitamins A and D and folate in the body, but some groups still need to increase their levels of vitamin D and iron, according to the Second National Report on Biochemical Indicators of Diet and Nutrition, released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.