Head Start programs have been shown to help poor children do better in school, but they may also help them fight obesity, a study suggests.

During a year of Head Start preschool, obese and overweight children were much more likely to slim down than comparison groups of kids.

A particularly bad flu is sweeping the United States, killing 26 children so far this season and nearly doubling hospitalizations among people over 65 in the past week alone, officials said Friday.

The reason is the predominant strain of flu this year is H3N2, a variety that has shown itself in prior years to be more virulent than other kinds.

The World Health Organization has approved giving a groundbreaking meningitis vaccine, which does not have to be stored in fridges or iceboxes, to babies across Africa, experts said Friday.

WHO's thumbs up for MenAfriVac in mass immunization programs will boost the campaign against meningitis in the world's poorest continent, the Meningitis Vaccine Project (MVP) said in a statement.

Wearable tech can sometimes cut right to the chase: that's the case with "Belty," a smart belt unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show which aims to help people lose weight.

With its embedded sensors, the belt will vibrate when it determines you have eaten too much, and also send a signal when you are sedentary for too long.

Women who use a specific type of injectable birth control have a slightly higher risk of HIV infection than those who take the pill, said a study Friday.

While the authors noted the link was "statistically significant", they warned it was not enough on its own to justify a complete withdrawal of the drug commonly known by its brand name, Depo-Provera, used by millions of women.

Treatment combining low-dose chemotherapy and the targeted drug trastuzumab showed promise in women with early stage breast cancer of a type called HER2-positive, U.S. researchers said Wednesday.

Women receiving the treatment were highly unlikely to see their cancer return, said the study in the New England Journal of Medicine analyzing a regimen that including the chemotherapy agent paclitaxel and the targeted drug under the brand name Herceptin.

The Vatican is increasing assistance to Western African countries hard-hit by the Ebola virus, setting aside 3 million euros ($3.55 million) to fund protective gear for care-givers, transport for sick patients and care for orphans left behind.

Vatican charity organizations and offices that deal with the developing world issued a joint mission statement Wednesday on beefing up the Catholic Church's response to the Ebola crisis in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

The three west African countries worst hit by the Ebola epidemic should be leading the response against the killer virus, the U.N.'s new mission chief on the disease said Wednesday, condemning "a problem of coordination" in the fightback.

"The governments of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea are the ones who are driving... this is about their people, this is about the fate of their countries, we should acknowledge that national leadership," said Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the new head of the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER).

A Japanese firm said Thursday it was recalling tens of thousands of pouches of baby food after an insect was discovered in one package, the latest food scare to rock consumers.

Asahi Holdings said its subsidiary would be calling back an estimated 120,000 bags of the meat-and-potatoes mix after one was found to contain a cricket, a small grasshopper-like insect.

A new gadget aimed at preventing heat-related deaths of infants in parked cars is on show at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Voxx Electronics's alert system is aimed at preventing absent-minded parents from leaving children alone in sweltering temperatures.