A Japanese study Wednesday said regular seaweed consumption among post-menopausal women heightened their risk of developing thyroid cancer, linking it to iodine in the macrobiotic food.

A 14-year national survey of nearly 53,000 Japanese women, aged between 40 and 69, found that the group reported 134 thyroid cancer cases, including 113 cases of papillary carcinoma, a common type of the illness.

U.S. health authorities on Tuesday ordered revised labels on some types of birth control including German pharmaceutical giant Bayer's Yaz pills to advise of a possibly higher risk of blood clots.

"Women who use birth control pills with drospirenone (like Yaz) may have a higher risk of getting a blood clot," said a new Yaz label on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website.

In Brazil, a country known for girls in mini-bikinis and where body-consciousness borders on obsession, nearly half the population is overweight, a study by the Ministry of Health released Tuesday found.

"There is a tendency toward increased weight and obesity in the country. It's time to reverse the trend to avoid becoming a country like the United States," said Health Minister Alexandre Padilha.

A test to measure the heart's electrical activity could help predict future heart attacks in otherwise healthy adults over 70, said a U.S. study on Tuesday.

Researchers followed 2,192 healthy adults aged 70-79 for a period of eight years, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

An Indian health warning on cigarette packets that uses an apparent picture of England footballer John Terry with a set of blackened lungs is to be withdrawn, officials said Wednesday.

Terry's London-based lawyers had threatened to sue over the blurry photograph featuring the head and shoulders of a man closely resembling the former England captain and current skipper of Premier League side Chelsea.

A toxic ingredient in a popular herbal remedy is linked to more than half of all cases of urinary tract cancer in Taiwan where use of traditional medicine is widespread, said a U.S. study Monday.

Aristolochic acid (AA) is a potent human carcinogen that is found naturally in Aristolochia plants, an ingredient common in botanical Asian remedies for aiding weight loss, easing joint pain and improving stomach ailments.

People who get regular dental X-rays are more likely to suffer a common type of brain tumor, U.S. researchers said Tuesday, suggesting that yearly exams may not be best for most patients.

The study in the U.S. journal Cancer showed people diagnosed with meningioma who reported having a yearly bitewing exam were 1.4 times to 1.9 times as likely as a healthy control group to have developed such tumors.

The number of new teenage mothers in the United States is at its lowest level in nearly 70 years but remains the highest of any major developed country, according to official figures released Tuesday.

The current rate of 34.3 births per 1,000 women aged 15-19 is down 44 percent from a peak in 1991, and is 64 percent lower than the record set during the 1957 "baby boom" of 96.3 births per 1,000.

Obesity during pregnancy may increase chances for having a child with autism, provocative new research suggests.

It's among the first studies linking the two, and though it doesn't prove obesity causes autism, the authors say their results raise public health concerns because of the high level of obesity in this country.

A German gynecologist is being investigated for allegedly having a stash of 35,000 photographs and several videos of naked patients, a report said on Saturday.

Medical assistants alerted the authorities to the collection of photographs kept by the doctor from Schifferstadt near Frankfurt in western Germany, the report by the DPA agency said.