Health

WASHINGTON - Lawmakers broke along party lines on a new aspect of the health care debate Sunday as a former National Institutes of Health chief urged women to ignore guidelines that delay the start of breast cancer screenings. Full Story »

WASHINGTON - Republicans are seizing on this week's recommendations for fewer Pap smears and mammograms to fuel concern about government-rationed medical care — and to try to chip away support by women for President Barack Obama's proposed health care overhaul. Full Story »

BROMONT, Quebec - A Canadian woman on long-term sick leave for depression says she lost her benefits because her insurance agent found photos of her on Facebook in which she appeared to be having fun. Full Story »

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A woman's risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) during her lifetime is doubled if she was obese at age 18, new research shows. Full Story »

THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- A spray touted as the first potential treatment for premature ejaculation has proved effective in a second study, according to the company that developed it. Full Story »

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Past the security man and his pit bull and through a haze of eye-watering smoke, two youths load up a pipe next to a row of shiny glass jars with two dozen varieties of marijuana bud displayed like candy. Full Story »

PARIS (AFP) - Beaten or sexually abused children are more likely to show accelerated ageing of cells later in life, a condition linked to higher rates of cancer and heart disease, according to a study released Friday. Full Story »

THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Seniors who eat plenty of fruits and vegetables and who have good cognitive function are much less likely to die from heart disease than those who have poorer cognitive function and eat fewer fruits and vegetables, a new study has found. Full Story »

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders are more likely to die of heart disease than mentally healthy individuals, a study in US veterans indicates. Full Story »

Several doctors groups and advocacy groups set guidelines for cancer screening, and they update that advice periodically as new information emerges. Sometimes they agree, sometimes they don't. Last year, a number of groups got together and issued consensus guidelines for colon cancer. Full Story »

HANOI, Vietnam - Babies squirmed and wailed as needles plunged into their chubby thighs at a public health clinic on the outskirts of Hanoi on Friday. Like little ones everywhere, the reaction to the sting was never pretty. Full Story »

JACKSON, Miss. - When Robin Webb lived in New York City, he was treated by HIV specialists and had access to counseling and nutritional programs. Now he lives in Mississippi, where few of those services exist. Full Story »

ATLANTA - The first county-by-county survey of obesity reflects past studies that show the rate of obesity is highest in the Southeast and Appalachia. High rates of obesity and diabetes were reported in more than 80 percent of counties in the Appalachian region that includes Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia, according to the new research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Full Story »

FRIDAY, Nov. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Children born to women who take folic acid in late pregnancy are at increased risk for asthma, Australian researchers say. Full Story »

THURSDAY, Nov. 19 (HealthDay News) -- While rates of obesity are climbing across America, they are especially high in sections of Appalachia and the Southeast, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports in its first county-by-county survey. Full Story »