The nation's rate of premature births is the lowest in a decade. Dropping for the fifth straight year, the preterm birth rate in 2011 was 11.7 percent, giving the U.S. a C, according to the March of Dimes Report Card. The March of Dimes has set a goal of 9.6 percent by 2020.

We re normally fans of New York Times science writer Jane Brody but her latest column on quitting smoking is incorrect and irresponsible. To begin with, she claims that, People ages 18 to 25 now have the nation s highest smoking rate: 40 percent. Um, no.

It s enough to make us crave our favorite In-And-Out burger. All future Mondays in the City of Angels are going to be officially meatless, the Los Angeles City Council has decided by a 12-0 vote, making it the biggest city in the nation to embrace the Meatless Mondays campaign, an initiative associated with John Hopkins University s public health school.

Starving yourself overnight before having your blood taken for a cholesterol test may not be necessary after all. A new study finds there s only a slight difference between fasting and nonfasting cholesterol levels. There was some fluctuation with diet for triglyceride levels and blood sugar, however, but even that was slight.

The long-awaited results of a clinical trial of the world s first potential malaria vaccine among infants are finally in and somewhat disappointing.

Survivors of colon cancer whose diets are heavy in complex sugars and carbohydrate-rich foods are more likely to have a recurrence of the disease than are patients who eat a better balanced diet, according to a new study from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

As public health delegates from around the world begin meeting in Seoul, South Korea, for a meeting to discuss revisions of the World Health Organization s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control treaty, a public policy expert is warning them against a dangerous group-think with regard to tobacco harm reduction.

Last month, in his blog on Medical Progress Today, ACSH s Dr. Josh Bloom expressed his surprise over a provocative new study suggesting that beta-blockers less effective than previously thought or maybe even useless.
He s expanded on those thoughts in a more comprehensive article for New Scientist magazine, entitled Beta blockers are busted what happens next?

Researchers investigating breast cancer are reassessing the effects that alcohol can have on the disease, as ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross explains in his latest column for Examiner.com.

Josh Bloom, New Scientist Magazine 11/12/12
Beta blockers are busted what happens next?