Health | WPN World People News

Harvard scientists found that the basic cause of age-related health decline is malfunctioning telomeres — the end caps on cells’ chromosomes that protect them against DNA damage.

Not all young girls avoid dirt. Hannah Rose Akerley, 7, plays in a gigantic lake of mud at the annual Mud Day event in Westland, Mich., last July.

New dietary guidelines released by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture urge Americans to increase physical activity, reduce sodium intake, choose foods that provide more potassium and opt for water, instead of soft drinks.

It has long been a given that adult humans — and mammals in general — lack the capacity to grow new nephrons, the kidney’s delicate blood filtering tubules, which has meant that dialysis, and ultimately kidney transplantation, is the only option for the more than 450,000 Americans who have kidney failure.

Nearly 26 million Americans have diabetes, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In addition, an estimated 79 million U.S. adults have prediabetes, a condition in which blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. Prediabetes raises a person's risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and U.S. Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli today announced a new report showing that the government’s health care fraud prevention and enforcement efforts recovered more than $4 billion in taxpayer dollars in Fiscal Year (FY) 2010. This is the highest annual amount ever recovered from people who attempted to defraud seniors and taxpayers. In addition, HHS today announced new rules authorized by the Affordable Care Act that will help the department work proactively to prevent and fight fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

Hygiene kits include dabas for clearing and disposing of faeces, as children generally defecate in the open, near homes.

Researchers say that when men smell the emotionally shed tears of women, their sexual arousal and testosterone levels drop.

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The United States Cancer Statistics: 2007 Incidence and Mortality Web-based report contains official federal government cancer statistics for cancer incidence in 99% of the U.S. population and mortality statistics for 100% of the U.S. population.