Infants born prematurely have higher death rates in childhood and, if they survive, much less likely to have children of their own in adulthood, according to the largest study of prematurity ever undertaken.

The study, conducted using Norwegian birth data, raises questions about future risks for even tinier babies saved today by modern medicine. Previous studies have shown that premature infants faced many neurological and developmental problems, but the new findings to be reported Wednesday indicate that the problems persist throughout the child's lifetime

More than 100 million Europeans still lack access to safe drinking water, resulting in the deaths from diarrhea of nearly 40 children every day, the United Nations said on Friday, mentioning that many people across the region do not enjoy the basic human right to healthy water.

More than 170,000 cases of water-related diseases - including over 120,000 cases of viral hepatitis A - were reported in 2006

new report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finds that health care spending in the United States could double by 2017, reaching an estimated $4.3 trillion, up from $2.1 trillion in 2006.

The estimated $4.3 trillion Americans will spend on health care over the next decade is equivalent to 20 percent of the national gross domestic product (GDP). The current $2.1 trillion the U.S. spends on health care amounts to 16 percent of the nation's GDP, the total value of all goods and services from all industries within the United States

Experts raised the warning flag on the public health concerns, saying that the attention being given to terrorist threats must also be given to obesity and other "lifestyle diseases" that are killing millions of people.

Speaking at the Oxford Health Alliance Summit held Monday in Sydney, experts said that while international terrorism is indeed a threat, it is less dangerous compared to the results and the risks posed by such conditions as diabetes, obesity, heart complications, and smoking-related illnesses

The National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF), the nation's leading voluntary health organization solely dedicated to osteoporosis and bone health, has released a new guide for evaluating and treating people with low bone mass, which leads to bone fractures.

NOF's "Clinician's Guide to Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis" is intended for bone doctors and was developed by a panel of bone experts and the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists. The guide features a new algorithm on absolute fracture risk released by the World Health Organization (WHO). This algorithm measures bone density and estimates the likelihood of a person to break a bone due to low bone mass or osteoporosis over a period of 10 years