Life expectancy was linked to the social environment where an individual is born, live, grow, work and age, according to a report released Thursday by the World Health Organization.

"The toxic combination of bad policies, economics and politics is in large measure responsible for the fact that a majority of people in the world do not enjoy the good health that is biologically possible," the WHO commissioners wrote in "Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity through Action on the Social Determinants of Health

Women who undergo severe stress during pregnancy risk giving birth to children who develop schizophrenia, a complex brain disorder, a study suggests.

Study leader Dr. Dolores Malaspina, from the New York University School of Medicine, and colleagues looked at birth data for 88,829 people born in Jerusalem from 1964 to 1976 and cross-referenced the information with Israel's national psychiatry registry

Although Canadian teens are talking more about sex, they are having less of it. According to Statistics Canada, the number of sexually active young Canadians between the ages 15 to 19 declined to 43 percent in 2005, down from 47 percent in 1997-98.

The Statistics Canada study on teen sexual behavior released Tuesday observed that the youth have become more comfortable discussing sex issues with their parents, public health nurses and doctors

Despite suffering from testicular cancer, U.S. Olympic swimmer Eric Shanteau will beat all odds to swim in the 200-meter breaststroke prelims Tuesday morning here.

The athlete, who finished with a second place in the U.S. trials, is putting off treatment to compete in the competition. Shanteau was diagnosed with the cancer on June 19, a week before leaving for the U.S. Olympic trials

Stress has definitely taken its toll on American war veteran, reflected in the spike of calls received by a suicide hot line on its first 12 months of operation.

According to Janet Hemp, national suicide prevention coordinator of the Veteran Affairs Department, over 22,000 veterans sought the assistance of stress experts by calling the suicide hot line for the past year. Because of the timely intervention, 1,221 suicides have been prevented