The percentage of American children who are overweight or obese appears to have leveled off after a 25-year increase, according to new figures that offer a glimmer of hope in an otherwise dismal battle. ...more

May 28, 2008

In the hope of saving the lives of more people waiting for transplants, New York is working on a plan to deploy a special ambulance to collect the bodies of people who have died suddenly from heart attacks, accidents and other emergencies and try to preserve their organs. ...more

May 24, 2008

Merck & Co. has agreed to pay $58 million as part of a multistate settlement of allegations that its ads for the once-popular painkiller Vioxx deceptively played down the health risks. ...more

May 21, 2008

He might be found curled up in bed as the clock ticks into Saturday afternoon. Maybe he's the guy grinning through gritted teeth as he pushes his next customer into a used car, still going after a 12- or 14-hour day. He might be behind the wheel, screaming at that damned woman who pauses too long at the four-way stop. ...more

May 20, 2008

SUNCOAST NEWS STAFF REPORT Doctors have long known cooling is a way to protect body tissue from injury in people suffering heart attacks or similar medical emergencies. The ways doctors have been using to cool patients, however, can take hours to lower body temperature to a level at which tissue is protected. ...more

May 7, 2008

A 43-year old man visited several doctors and the emergency room complaining of difficulty breathing. He was diagnosed as having allergy with sinusitis, and then bronchitis. Neither Benadryl nor a prescribed inhaler helped. It was challenging for him to climb stairs, and he couldn't do his carpentry work. ...more

February 22, 2008

One week after U.S. researchers announced that pushing down blood sugar levels as close as possible to normal might be dangerous for high-risk diabetes patients, a preliminary analysis of a similar international study has found no such risk. ...more

February 14, 2008

New research suggests that more people survive major heart attacks with fewer problems if doctors use a mini-vacuum to clear out an artery blockage instead of pushing it aside to restore blood flow. ...more

February 7, 2008

Aggressively driving blood sugar levels as low as possible in high-risk diabetes patients appears to increase the risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke, according to major government study that stunned and disappointed experts. ...more

February 7, 2008

A popular cholesterol-lowering drug failed to help slow the buildup of artery-clogging plaque in a long-awaited study, the companies that market the medication said Monday, raising questions about whether its use should be limited. ...more

January 15, 2008