Immigrants to the United States often ditch their ethnic diets for high-calorie American fare, partly because it is cheap and easy to find but also as a way to fit in, a new study shows.

Immigrants who eat American are consuming, on average, 182 extra calories and seven additional grams of saturated fat compared to immigrants who stick to their traditional diet, leaving the fast-food immigrants more likely to become obese and suffer chronic illnesses related to obesity.

A review of medical studies gave the thumbs-up on to Tai Chi as a way of improving mental health in the elderly, but does not confirm other claims made for the Chinese martial art.

British and South Korean researchers looked at 35 assessments of Tai Chi found in English-language, Chinese and Korean databases.

Teens who play a lot of video games are likely to sleep less than the eight to nine hours a night recommended for the age group, researchers said Monday.

Speaking via teleconference from the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, researchers said that an analysis of data on 16,000 teens also found that youths who reported sleeping less than seven hours a night did not get enough exercise, which could also impact their health.

Initial test results indicate that a 12-year-old girl died of the deadly Ebola virus in a town about 35 kilometers (22 miles) north of Kampala, health officials told Agence France Presse.

Preliminary testing carried out at the Uganda Virus Research Institute showed on Friday that the girl died from the virus on May 6 at Bombo hospital, said Dr Miriam Nanyunja, disease prevention and control officer for the World Health Organization in Uganda.

There may be a whiff of truth to claims by allergy sufferers who sniffle that this season is, well, a bigger headache than years past.

And now, more bad news: It's also lasting longer, prolonging the misery of the millions of people for whom spring is a punishment, not a pleasure.

People with HIV who take antiretroviral drugs before their health declines have a 96 percent lower risk of transmitting the virus to a partner, a breakthrough global study released Thursday said.

The large study that covered mainly heterosexual couples in Africa, India and the Americas was hailed by AIDS experts as a "game-changer" that will transform how the disease is managed, 30 years after it first surfaced.

New contraceptive methods are needed for developing world women, including one in four in sub-Saharan Africa, whose needs for modern birth control are not being met, a study has found.

A 52-page report by the New York-based Guttmacher Institute urged new methods to reach 148 million women in three regions where there are 49 million unintended pregnancies every year resulting in 21 million abortions.

On the occasion of the International Nurses Day on May 12, First Lady, Mrs. Wafa’a Sleiman welcomed President of the Order of Nurses in Lebanon, Mrs. Claire Ghafari Zablit along with Order members, Mrs. Ghada Al Ayli, Mrs. Rima Kazan, and Mrs. Vicky Gebran, to discuss future plans and activities carried out by the Order of Nurses.

First Lady was also put in the picture of the 1st International Conference: "Globalization and Nursing: Challenges and Perspectives", that will be held at Hotel Al Habtoor - Sin El Fil , on Thursday, May 12 2011 and which will remain for two days -until Saturday May 14- including distinguished keynote speakers from Lebanon, Canada, the United States, France, Switzerland, and the UK.

U.S. researchers said Wednesday they have identified for the first time human lung stem cells that are self-renewing and could offer important clues for treating chronic lung diseases.

Previous studies have shown researchers were able to create lung cells using human embryonic stem cells, but this lung stem cell was isolated using surgical samples of adult human lung tissue.

Hate insects? Afraid of germs? Researchers are reporting an alarming combination: bedbugs carrying a staph "superbug." Canadian scientists detected drug-resistant staph bacteria in bedbugs from three hospital patients from a downtrodden Vancouver neighborhood.

Bedbugs have not been known to spread disease, and there's no clear evidence that the five bedbugs found on the patients or their belongings had spread the MRSA germ they were carrying or a second less dangerous drug-resistant bacteria.