A U.S. man who lost his lips, nose and teeth in a 1997 gun accident has received the most extensive face transplant to date, according to doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center.

Richard Lee Norris, 37, had undergone several life-saving and reconstructive surgeries after the accident but had limited use of his mouth and, before the surgery, appeared as though his lower face and nose had been mashed in.

Two young Chinese women undergoing sex-change surgery at a Shanghai hospital are hoping to be the first twins in the country to change their gender, a state-backed newspaper said Wednesday.

The 25-year-old sisters from the southwestern province of Yunnan have already undergone preliminary surgery at a military hospital in the commercial hub, the Shanghai Daily reported.

Sao Paulo on Tuesday inaugurated a multipurpose aid center to provide care for hundreds of drug users and street squatters two months after police shut down a thriving downtown crack cocaine market.

A little more than two years before Brazil's largest city is due to host the opening game of the 2014 World Cup, authorities made good on a promise to assist a large street population in so-called "Cracolandia," a 10-block central area of dilapidated buildings.

A new kind of blood thinner that comes in a pill form and is made by German drug giant Bayer works as well as injection therapy to ward off blood clots in the lungs, said a study on Monday.

Xarelto, or rivaroxaban, was tested in an international phase III clinical trial as a treatment to treat or prevent a recurrence of venous thromboembolism, the third most common kind of cardiovascular disease, which can strike the legs or the lungs.

Two clinical studies suggest that gastric surgery is better than traditional methods of care when it comes to controlling diabetes in overweight and obese patients.

The first study, coined STAMPEDE, and presented at the American College of Cardiology conference, showed that patients who had operations fared three to four times better than those who did not after one year.

A monthly injection of an experimental drug made by the U.S. biotech firm Amgen reduced patients' cholesterol by up to 66 percent, according to a small study described at a U.S. cardiology conference.

The early phase 1 clinical trial, designed mainly to see if the treatment was safe, followed 51 patients who received a shot of the drug, AMG 145, either once every two or every four weeks.

Healthy people who exercise and also eat chocolate regularly tend to have a lower body mass index than those who eat the rich brown sweets less often, a US study suggested on Monday.

The survey of a population of more than 1,000 adults, published as a research letter in the Archives of Internal Medicine, reinforces the notion that chocolate packs heart healthy benefits, despite its high calorie and sugar content.

People who see images of their badly clogged arteries are more likely to lose weight and take anti-cholesterol drugs than people who don't see severe disease on a computerized scan, according to researchers.

Two studies presented at the American College of Cardiology annual meeting in Chicago showed that having a look at the real-time effect of one's own lifestyle habits was a major motivator for change.

An experimental blood thinning drug made by the pharmaceutical giant Merck may reduce the risk of dying from a heart attack but also boosts the danger of internal bleeding, researchers said Saturday.

The latest data further clouds the future for Vorapaxar, an anti-platelet medicine that works differently than aspirin or the popular blood thinner coumadin, and which Merck had hoped might one day be a new blockbuster drug.

Eating raisins and soy appears to help ward off high blood pressure, a key risk factor in heart disease, according to two studies presented at a major U.S. cardiology conference on Sunday.

Munching on a handful of raisins three times a day helped people with slightly elevated blood pressure lower their numbers after several weeks, said one of the studies presented at the American College of Cardiology conference.