Health - Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Researchers trying to find ways to transform ordinary skin cells into powerful stem cells said on Sunday they found a shortcut by "sprinkling" a chemical onto the cells.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A disease that has killed three people in South Africa and forced others into isolation wards may be rodent borne, a health official said Sunday, SAPA news agency reported.

SULAIMANIYA, Iraq (Reuters) - Thirty-seven people have been infected by anthrax in northern Iraq in the country's first outbreak of the disease since the 1980s, the health minister in the Kurdish autonomous region said Sunday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A magazine cover photo of Angelina Jolie breast-feeding one of her newborn twins may have turned the superstar actress into a role model for new mothers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A quarter of girls aged 13-17 in the United States received Merck & Co's Gardasil vaccine last year to protect against the human papillomavirus, which causes cervical cancer, the U.S. government said on Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who undergo liver transplantation, particularly children, are at increased risk for developing cancer, Finnish researchers report in the journal Liver Transplantation.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Drug-resistant HIV strains are turning up in parts of China as the virus stretches beyond high-risk groups and gains a stronger foothold in the general population, a leading Chinese AIDS researcher said.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Obesity appears to increase the risk of miscarriage, according to a review study appearing in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Many women don't know that obesity increases their risk of several types of cancer, a new survey published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology shows.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A survey of more than 350 plastic surgeons indicates that occupational injuries, especially muscle strains, are the norm, not the exception in this profession, according to study findings to be presented next month at the American Society of Plastic Surgery meeting in Chicago.

NEW YORK (Reuter Health) - Inadvertent exposure to latex poses a "serious health risk to millions of Americans," Dr. Donald H. Beezhold, chair of the Latex Allergy Committee of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (AAAAI) warns in a statement issued this month.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In older adults, taking naps during the day, even in the late afternoon or early evening, does not seem to detract from hours of sleep logged at night or the quality of that sleep, research suggests.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Although men are at high risk of acquiring human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, most last no more than a year, about the same time this sexually transmitted disease persists in women, researchers report in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Japanese investigators say that survival rates are better for patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who never smoked than in NSCLC patients with a history of smoking. Other disease characteristics are different as well between the two populations.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Japanese researchers who invented a way to make powerful stem cells out of ordinary cells say they have now found a safer way to do it.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The number of hospital days is lower for daily home hemodialysis patients than for peritoneal dialysis patients, according to a report in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Extract from the leaves of the ginkgo tree offers promise to minimize brain damage caused by a stroke, scientists said on Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Drinking red wine, but not white wine, may reduce lung cancer risk, especially among current and ex-smokers, new research indicates.