Obese middle-aged people are nearly 30% less likely to develop dementia than those of a healthy weight, a study has revealed.

Europe must form a group of specialists ready to tackle outbreaks like ebola, the man who discovered the disease almost 40 years ago has said.

The UK and the rest of Europe must form a group of specialists ready to tackle outbreaks like Ebola, the man who discovered the disease almost 40 years ago has said.

Policies advocated by the IMF have contributed to under-funded, insufficiently staffed, and poorly prepared health systems in the countries with ebola outbreaks in west Africa, academics said yesterday.

Two months ago, the World Health Organisation launched an ambitious plan to stop the deadly ebola outbreak in West Africa, aiming to isolate 70% of the sick and safely bury 70% of the victims in the three hardest-hit countries — Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone — by today, December 1.

Health teams that went door-to-door in Sierra Leone found 130 confirmed cases of Ebola during a nationwide shutdown to slow the spread of the disease, an official has said.

People could lose up to half a stone if they did not drive to work and used public transport or actively commuted instead, research has suggested.

People who are overweight or obese are at greater risk of developing cancer, according to a major new study.

IT’S a summer with a sting in the tail. Warm and moist weather is providing ideal conditions for biting insects, with midges, fleas, ants, horseflies and their ilk having a field day.

The World Health Organisation has declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be an international public health emergency that requires an extraordinary response to stop its spread.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be an international public health emergency that requires an extraordinary response to stop its spread.

No one knows just how many people Patrick Sawyer came into contact with the day he boarded a flight in Liberia, had a stopover in Ghana, changed planes in Togo, and then arrived in Nigeria, where authorities say he died days later from Ebola, one of the deadliest diseases known to man.

US government workers cleaning out an old storage room at a research centre near Washington have made a startling discovery — decades-old vials of smallpox packed away and forgotten in a cardboard box.

The recent recession may have led to thousands of additional suicides, a new study suggests.

The lives of three million women and babies can be saved every year by 2025 for an annual investment of about a dollar per head in better maternity care, researchers said.

The spread of polio to countries previously considered free of the crippling disease represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organisation has said.

A mother’s diet can permanently alter the functioning of her son or daughter’s genes — even before the child is conceived, a study shows.

One-in-10 teenage girls have “extreme levels of fear” about gaining weight, a study suggests.

The number of British women having lesbian encounters has quadrupled in the last 20 years, according to the largest-ever survey of Britain’s sexual habits.

Smartphones have made up the majority of mobile phone sales worldwide for the first time, according to new figures.

Parents are being warned sharing a bed with their baby increases the risk of cot death.

A study has found breastfed babies under the age of three months who sleep in their parents’ beds face a five-fold increased risk of cot death.

You’ve heard of dirty money, but this is ridiculous.

CHILD obesity could be reduced if the clocks did not go back in the winter, a study has found.

MOTIVATIONAL text messages sent to smokers’ mobile phones can double their chances of giving up tobacco, a study has found.

Higher alcohol consumption in late adolescence often continues into adulthood and is associated with long-term alcohol problems including dependence, a new study has suggested.

ALCOHOL may cut the risk of heart disease by almost a third in men, research suggested yesterday.

IRISH organic growers say new research that found their produce had no health benefits failed to take account of the cocktail of chemicals used in intensive farming.

Eating organic food does not provide any significant nutritional or health benefits, according to a study published in the UK today.

AN AMERICAN man who suffered from Aids appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukaemia, his doctors said.

THE economic burden of gastroenteritis on the island of Ireland is more than €135 million a year.

MORE than half of the 1.1 billion people projected to add to the world’s population by 2030 will live in urban slums if global development priorities are not reassessed, according to a report out yesterday.

YOUNG people in Ireland, and across the world, are still engaging in unsafe sex because of misguided views, according to new research.

A new, deadly strain of tuberculosis has killed 52 of 53 people infected in the last year in South Africa, the World Health Organisation said today, calling for improved measures to treat and diagnose the bacteria.

TOP British public health experts appealed to Tánaiste Mary Harney yesterday not to bring the private sector into the Irish health system.

There is no evidence to support a link between the controversial MMR jab and the development of autism in children, researchers in Britain said today.

One in 10 of the world’s schoolchildren is overweight, and about 45 million of them have an increased risk of developing diabetes, heart disease and other illnesses before they leave their teens, according to the first global assessment of child obesity.

PARENTS were yesterday warned that sharing a bed with an infant less than eight weeks of age increases the risk of cot death.

WOMEN in the US have higher survival rates for breast cancer than women in Europe because they are diagnosed with the disease earlier, according to the latest research.

WORLDWIDE obesity is so rife that it represents an evolutionary shift in human body shape, an expert said yesterday.