NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Our ever-expanding waistlines may have outgrown the doctor's needle, researchers say, in what could be another casualty of the obesity epidemic.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Medicare's move in 2005 to pay doctors to do bladder cancer surgery in their offices rather than in hospitals dramatically raised the number of procedures and overall health costs, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) -- A number of studies over the past two decades have shown that religious people tend to be healthier. But a new study suggests that when it comes to heart disease and clogged arteries, attending religious

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Only a small number of U.S. women at high risk of breast cancer have chosen to use the drug tamoxifen to lower that risk, according to a study published Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Children with a limited vocabulary at the age of 5 may be at increased risk of poor literacy as adults, a study published Monday suggests.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Overweight boys may start puberty later than their leaner peers, new research shows.

LONDON (Reuters) - Estrogen-only hormone replacement therapy (HRT) may increase the risk of developing asthma after the menopause, scientists said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People who drink two or more sweetened soft drinks a week have a much higher risk of pancreatic cancer, an unusual but deadly cancer, researchers reported on Monday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A once-a-day pill helped completely rebuild bone in rodents with severe osteoporosis, a finding that could lead to a new class of drugs to treat the brittle-bone disease in humans, U.S. researchers said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have found specific genetic variants which may explain why some people age earlier than others and say their findings have important implications for understanding cancer and age-related diseases.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Being an older mother significantly increases the risk of having a child with autism, but being an older father only increases the risk when the mother is under the age of 30, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - People are afraid to lose money and an unusual study released on Monday explains why - the brain's fear center controls the response to a gamble.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Living near farms that use the weed killer atrazine may up the risk of a rare birth defect, according to a study presented this past Friday at the annual meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Men who don't smoke and eat a lot of soy may have a lower risk of lung cancer, according to a new study.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A few minutes a day of midday summer sun can raise most fair-skinned people's vitamin D levels to sufficient, but not optimal, levels, according to new research from the UK.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - H1N1 swine flu is still circulating around the world and still killing people, although it is on the decline everywhere, global health officials said on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The simple practice of slow breathing may help people deal with the physical and emotional reactions to moderate pain, a small study suggests.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Women who have a hysterectomy for non-cancerous conditions seem to fare similarly well in terms of psychological well-being whether they have all or part of the uterus removed, a new study finds.

LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists have used an "artificial pancreas" system of pumps and monitors to improve blood sugar control in diabetes patients in the first study to show the new device works better than conventional treatment.

LONDON (Reuters) - Global attention is turning away from the AIDS epidemic at just the wrong time and means a fresh wave of the disease could infect millions of people in high-risk countries, a leading expert said on Friday.