A lack of political will remains the greatest obstacle to efforts to drastically reduce the number of people without access to basic sanitation and clean, running water, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Saturday, calling on the international community to take firmer and faster steps to tackle the problem.

"If we take up the challenge, the positive impact will reverberate far beyond better access to clean water," the U.N. chief said in a message to mark World Water Day, which is celebrated on Saturday. This year's Day also coincides with the International Year of Sanitation

A happy marriage is good for your blood pressure, but a stressed one can be bad for your blood pressure, a preliminary study suggests. The study, published in the Annals of Behavioral Medicine included 204 married people and 99 single men and women.

Participants were 20-68 years old, with an average age of 31. Most of the singles - 89 percent - had never been married and none was living with a partner. Married participants had been married for eight years, on average

Growth hormones in athletes does not increase their performance, according to a new research at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The researchers summarized the gathered data from 44 previous articles on the effect of growth hormones on athletic performance

An estimated 10 million American baby boomers will develop Alzheimer's disease in their lifetime, affecting one in every eight baby boomers, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Alzheimer's Association.

Currently, at least 5.2 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's, including 200,000 to 250,000 people under age 65. It is estimated that there will be 500,000 new cases of the mind-wasting disease each year by 2010, and nearly one million new cases annually by 2050, the report estimates

The Canadian Pediatric Society is reviewing its position on lindane-based anti-lice products and its current recommendation that they not be used on infants and children under 17.

This as environmentalists urge parents of children battling head lice to avoid over-the-counter treatments that contain the pesticide outlawed for agricultural use in dozen of countries - including Canada - because of its adverse effects on humans and the water supply