With the onset of the flu season, the first protection for seniors, who are considered among the most vulnerable, is the flu vaccine. However, a new study says the vaccine is less beneficial and may not protect older people from pneumonia after they have the disease.

Researchers collected data on 1,173 people between 65 and 94 who had pneumonia. These individuals were compared with 2,346 people who did not get pneumonia. Both groups had similar rates of flu vaccination over three seasons of studies, the researchers say

Removing gut bacteria from stomach cancer patients greatly reduces the risk of cancer recurrence, a Japanese study has found.

The study, published in the Lancet medical journal, found that getting rid of Helicobacter pylori reduced the risk of further stomach cancer by about two-thirds over three years

Women diagnosed with diabetes before their pregnancy are at a greater risk of giving birth to a baby with a birth defect or multiple defects than their non-diabetic counterparts, according to a new study.

The study carried out by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found diabetic women are three to four times more likely to have a child with single birth defects, while the risk for multiple defects is eightfold

Infant deaths directly related to preterm births have increased, especially for non-Hispanic black women, according to the Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics.

African-Americans are 2.4 times as likely to die as infants, compared with white newborns. Among white children, the infant-mortality rate rose to 5.73 per 1,000 live births in 2005, compared with 5.66 in the previous year. Overall, the U.S. infant-mortality rate rose to 6.86 per 1,000 in 2005, from 6.78 in 2004, according to the data

Overweight and obese women need to exercise about an hour a day, five days a week, to lose weight and sustain it, a new study has found.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and colleagues tracked 201 overweight and obese women over a two-year period. The participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups based on how much and how intensely they exercised and how many calories they burned