People who have fat friends are more likely to put on some unwanted pounds as compared to people who have leaner friends, new research suggests. Calling it "imitative obesity," an international team including University of Warwick experts suggest fat friends can cause someone to put on weight too.

Researchers analyzed data on 27,000 people from across Europe and found that obesity is more of a sociological phenomenon than a physiological one, as people are subconsciously influenced by the weight of people around them

The father of an 18-year old schizophrenic mentally retarded girl raped by a nursing home resident is battling for legislation that would mandate posting the names of residents with sex offense records.

Ray McDaniel pushed for the bill, which has been adopted by the Ohio House and is waiting for a Senate hearing. He supports every state requiring its staff to disclose the presence of sex offenders among residents. He hopes this would prevent a repeat of what happened to his daughter, who was abused by a 43-year old male resident, now serving time in prison

A new drug could potentially save the lives of thousands of prostate cancer sufferers, new studies have shown, while eliminating the need for damaging chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The drug, abiraterone, works by blocking the hormones which fuel the cancer and a human trial has shown that it can shrink tumors in up to 80 percent of cases. The technique could also be effective on other tumors, such as breast and bowel cancers, Britain's Daily Mail reported

Pregnant women who use the epilepsy drug topiramate alone or in combination with other epilepsy drugs may be at a greater risk of giving birth to children with certain physical defects, British researchers report.

Topiramate, brand name Topamax, is a common anti-seizure medication that is also taken by some migraine patients. Though many similar drugs also increase the risk of birth defects, the incidence of birth defects seen when Topamax was taken with other anti-epileptic drugs was higher than expected

Researchers studying more than 100 families linked to autism from the Middle East, Turkey and Pakistan said they had identified at least six new genes that may provide families new hope for future treatment.

The finding, published in the July 11 issue of Science, shows that autism is not only caused by the deletion of some genes but also by turning off other genes. These genes cause disruptions in the brain's ability to form new connections in response to experience