According to the Centers for Disease Control, as of to-date, 105 people have been sickened in the national meningitis outbreak, which was caused by a batch of fungus-tainted steroid shots used to treat back pain. The death toll has climbed to nine, while health officials warn that as many as 13,000 people who received the shots may be at risk.

In 2008, nearly 215,000 men in the U.S. were diagnosed with prostate cancer and 28,000 died from the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control. That makes it the second most common cause of cancer death in men (after lung cancer), but it is often difficult to accurately determine what if any treatment is the best option.

Last month, ACSH s Dr.

Restricted-calorie diets of various types are known to be effective for accomplishing weight loss. Unfortunately, these results are often not maintained, as participants adherence tends to diminish over time.

Older patients who have suffered a heart attack often don t bother to take medication that could potentially save their lives, a new eyebrow-raising study has found.

There s also more evidence out this week about the dangers of cigarettes. A study of 28,000 men who started college at Harvard University between 1916 and 1950 found that smoking in one s teenage years is associated with a 29 percent increased risk of death, even though they quit later.

An Inhalation Toxicology study found that very few chemicals in very low concentrations were detected.

Providing women with free, long-acting contraception appears to be a good way to cut the U.S. rates of abortion and unintended teen pregnancy, a new study suggests. The nearly 10,000 women at risk for unintended pregnancy in the St.

Although rare, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a devastating genetic disease that ultimately results in muscle degeneration and death. With no known cure, the approximately 1 in 3,600 boys affected by the disease are treated with steroid drugs and physical therapy in order to improve their quality of life.

Just last month, a series of new articles reported on the exciting findings from the ENCODE project, which is still contributing to our understanding of the human genome 10 years after it was sequenced.