From U.S. "Botox parties" to Asia's craze for eyelid jobs or Brazilian bum lifts, millions now reshape their bodies through cosmetic surgery each year.

But the booming industry is battling a Wild West of rogue practices, cruelly highlighted by the French breast implant scandal.

U.S. researchers said Wednesday they have found the first genetic mutation linked to an inherited form of prostate cancer, raising new hope of one day improving early screening for the disease.

The mutation appears only in a small subset of prostate cancer patients, but those who inherited it showed 10 to 20 times higher risk of developing prostate cancer, particularly before age 55, the researchers said.

A private British clinic that fitted almost 14,000 women with breast implants made by French firm PIP said on Wednesday it would not remove them free of charge despite calls from the government.

The Harley Medical Group, which operated on 13,900 women between September 2001 and March 2010, claimed the cost of replacing the implants would put it out of business.

Researchers on Wednesday reported an "excess number of cases" of childhood leukemia around 19 French nuclear plants between 2003 and 2007.

That excess cancer rate disappeared, however, when the data was extended to cover a longer period, the researchers reported in a study, published earlier this month in the International Journal of Cancer.

An appetite-curbing hormone found in the gut may help overweight and obese people shed weight, lower blood pressure and reduce cholesterol levels, according to a study released Wednesday.

Known as glucagon-like peptide-1, or GLP-1, the hormone is naturally secreted from the intestine when we eat.

People who occasionally smoke marijuana do not suffer long-term lung damage the way cigarette smokers do, and may actually experience a slight improvement, said a 20-year U.S. study published Tuesday.

Since the research included more than 5,000 people over a long time span, the authors said it should help clear up some of the confusion about the risks of marijuana smoking, which is increasingly common in the United States.

College-age drinkers average nine drinks when they get drunk, government health officials said Tuesday. That surprising statistic is part of a new report highlighting the dangers of binge drinking, which usually means four to five drinks at a time.

Overall, about 1 in 6 U.S. adults surveyed said they had binged on alcohol at least once in the previous month, though it was more than 1 in 4 for those ages 18 to 34.

Older adults who are starting to have problems with memory may benefit from small amounts of nicotine therapy, according to a U.S. study published on Monday.

The research in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, included 74 non-smokers with an average age of 76. Half were given a daily nicotine patch for six months, the other half wore a placebo patch.

Post-menopausal women who take medication to lower their cholesterol face a higher risk of getting diabetes than women who do not take the popular drugs, known as statins, said a U.S. study on Monday.

The risk was apparent even after researchers adjusted for variables such as age, race/ethnicity and body mass index, said the study in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a publication of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Grief over the death of a loved one can cause a huge spike in a person's risk of heart attack, especially in the early days after the loss, said a U.S. study on Monday.

The research tracked nearly 2,000 adults who survived a heart attack and found that among those who had just lost a loved one, the risk of a heart attack soared 21 times higher than normal in the first day.