The Wall Street Journal reports, A new generation of anti-obesity drugs could hit the market in coming months...The three new medications, which have been submitted for approval to the Food and Drug Administration, also can be expected to have side effects for some patients...But doctors say different weight-loss medications affect people differently, so having more choices should help them match a patient to a therapy tha

New guidelines from the American Academy of Neurology seek to help family members of dementia patients gauge when their loved one is no longer capable of driving.

A study published in the journal Archives of Neurology suggests that a diet rich in olive oil, nuts, fish, poultry, and certain fruits and vegetables may help stave off Alzheimer’s disease.

Today is the first anniversary of the first known H1N1 death -- that of a government worker in Oaxaca, Mexico -- and there is no shortage of reflection on how the pandemic was addressed.

The UK’s National Health Service is spending several thousand pounds to construct a forty-foot effigy of an obese boy eating a burger that they plan to burn publicly as part of a healthy eating drive.
“The message that I would get from this is that if you are obese, watch out or the government will burn you,” says Dr. Ross. “They do this instead of teaching healthy eating habits.”

An Associated Press article reports that unusually high pollen levels seem to promise a tough allergy season this year.

A New York Times blog reports, Alice Waters, a pioneering chef and the matriarch of the sustainable food movement, has become an unlikely target in a battle being waged by food activists in San Francisco over a city program that converts sewage sludge into gardening compost.

According to the New York Post, The controversial fat tax Gov. Paterson hopes to resurrect in budget talks this week could hike the price of powdered drink mixes such as Kool-Aid, Gatorade, and iced tea by nearly double.

Journal News columnist Phil Reismen lampoons the idea of a soda tax by setting forth his mock proposal for the next most logical step: a tax on obesity itself. He writes, To carry out the plan, citizens would be required by law to report every year to community weigh stations established by a brand new Federal Bureau of Obesity.

Tennis great Martina Navratilova is being treated for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) found in her left breast in January. USA Today explains, DCIS is the most common type of non-invasive breast cancer and is sometimes referred to as Stage 0 or precancer. Though DCIS is hardly ever life-threatening, it carries an increased risk of invasive cancer down the road.