McDonald's is a sponsor for the London Olympics — and a British doctors' group says that's sending the wrong message in a country with ballooning obesity.

Big Macs, fries and milkshakes will be part of McDonald's exclusively branded menu at the Olympics and the fast-food giant will soon be opening its largest franchise in the world, a two-story cathedral-like restaurant that seats 1,500 customers, at London's Olympic Park. McDonald's will be the only restaurateur allowed to sell brand-name food at the Games and there will also be a separate McDonald's within the Athletes Village — in addition to three others at the Olympic Park.

When pregnant women are exposed to moderate levels of a common pesticide, their children may experience lasting changes in brain structure linked to lower intelligence, a U.S. study said Monday.

The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined New York City pregnant mothers who were tested for exposure to chlorpyrifos, or CPF, which is widely used for pest control in farms and public spaces.

Prescription painkiller abuse among mothers-to-be has driven up the rate of babies born in the United States with opiate addiction almost threefold in a decade, said a U.S. study on Monday.

The study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed a five-fold increase in maternal use of painkillers from 2000 to 2009, rising from 1.19 cases per 1,000 births to 5.63 per 1,000 annually.

New research sends a stark warning to overweight teens: If you develop diabetes, you'll have a very tough time keeping it under control.

A major study, released Sunday, tested several ways to manage blood sugar in teens newly diagnosed with diabetes and found that nearly half of them failed within a few years and 1 in 5 suffered serious complications. The results spell trouble for a nation facing rising rates of "diabesity" — Type 2 diabetes brought on by obesity.

Coca-Cola has been ordered to temporarily halt production at a bottling plant in northern China, after media reports of chlorine in its products, according to a government statement.

Shanxi province ordered an investigation after reports that a batch of drinks contained water with chlorine, the province's quality bureau said in a statement at the weekend.

Scientists have identified a gene that slows the spread of pancreatic cancer tumors, paving the way for targeted treatment of one of the deadliest forms of the disease, said a paper published Sunday.

After discovering the gene dubbed USP9X at work in a study of pancreatic cancer in mice, the international research team found it also played a role in humans.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday questioned the safety of DMAA, a stimulant used in dietary supplements, alleging that marketers were illegally selling the chemical.

Popular with fitness buffs seeking an edge or weight loss, the brands include Napalm, Code Red, Hemo Rage Black, Nitric Blast and Jack3D.

Hardly anyone succumbs to the bubonic plague these days, but U.S. health authorities on Friday approved a new treatment for it and other forms of the potentially deadly bacterial infection.

Fast food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken was Friday ordered to pay Aus$8 million (US$8.3 million) to an Australian girl who suffered severe brain damage and was paralyzed after eating a chicken wrap.

Monika Samaan was seven when she suffered salmonella encephalopathy -- a brain injury linked to food poisoning that also left her with a blood infection and septic shock -- in October 2005.

Steve Wohlen lay on his front lawn, blue, unconscious and barely breathing, overdosing on heroin.

His mother ran outside, frantically assembling a pen-like canister. Her heart pounding, she dropped to her knees and used the device to deliver two squirts up her son's nostrils.