A new study examining the placebo effect shows that patients will feel better if they believe they are taking painkillers, even if their doses contain no medication.

The University of Michigan study shows that the brain releases chemicals that relieve pain in patients who believe they're being treated

Three people are infected with a pig-borne disease in the southern region of China and one has died, a day after an epidemic in another part of the country was declared under control.

The Xinhua News Agency reports that those infected reside in four different areas in Guangdong province

Simple observations in places like public bars or restaurants can suggest that women in general feel the effects of alcohol faster than men. But while most people argue that it is all about the difference of sizes between the two sexes, studies suggest it has more to do with body composition.

According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, it found that in women levels of gastric alcohol dehydrogenase, a compound that breaks down alcohol, are on average nearly half what they are in men. It also found that the amount of alcohol metabolized after its first passage through a woman's liver and stomach is 23 percent of what it is in men

Simple observations in places like public bars or restaurants can suggest that women in general feel the effects of alcohol faster than men. But while most people argue that it is all about the difference of sizes between the two sexes, studies suggest it has more to do with body composition.

According to a study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, it found that in women levels of gastric alcohol dehydrogenase, a compound that breaks down alcohol, are on average nearly half what they are in men. It also found that the amount of alcohol metabolized after its first passage through a woman's liver and stomach is 23 percent of what it is in men

A jury in the first civil trial against Merck & Co.'s popular painkiller Vioxx on Friday found the pharmaceutical company liable for the 2001 death of a Texas man, awarding his widow a total of more than $250 million, according to Reuters.

Robert Ernst, a 59-year-old marathon runner and Wal-Mart worker who was taking the arthritis painkiller at the time of his death