Nearly one in 10 American soldiers who served in Iraq were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, most after witnessing death or participating in combat.

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People who survived the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 are still suffering health problems, a study reports. The younger they were at the time, and the more radiation they were exposed to, the higher their risk of illness.

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New infectious diseases are emerging at an unprecedented rate, say scientists.

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Alzheimer’s disease progresses more rapidly in highly educated people, research suggests.

It is thought high levels of education may ward off Alzheimer’s by helping the brain better tolerate damaging changes.

But the latest study, involving 312 Alzheimer’s patients, suggests once accumulated damage reaches a critical level, decline is relatively swift.

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Researchers are scrambling to discover what is blinding children in the Amazon city of Araguatins in the remote northern Brazilian state of Tocantins.

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People who are at highest risk for cardiovascular disease generally have the lowest level of control of high cholesterol levels.

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Moderate consumption of caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee may lower the risk of type 2 diabetes in middle-aged and younger women, according to a new report.

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Unhealthy lifestyles and unstable family environments may be contributing to a fall in the age of puberty, research suggests.

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Increased levels of certain proteins detectable in blood or cerebrospinal fluid may signal inflicted traumatic brain injury in well-appearing infants with vague, nonspecific symptoms, such as vomiting or fussiness.

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Which particular kind of HIV virus an AIDS patient has may be more important than other factors in how quickly death comes. Researchers found that people infected with a clade, or subtype, of HIV called D died more quickly that those with infections from the A clade.

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This month, the Army will donate the last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital to Pakistan where it has been caring for survivors of last year’s massive earthquake. The Army is replacing MASH units with smaller casualty surgical hospitals that sit closer to battlegrounds and the wounded.

Read (AP via Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star)

Black New Yorkers continue to fall ill, and die from, AIDS at startling rates, according to the city health department.

Today, one in five black men in New York City between 40 and 49 has H.I.V. or AIDS. Black women, meanwhile, account for 34 percent of new AIDS cases, up from 12 percent 20 years ago.

Read (New York Times)

The vaccine has been shown to prevent almost entirely the life-threatening bouts of diarrhea and vomiting that accompany rotavirus infections.

Merck, the medicine’s maker, has said it will charge $187.50 for a series of three oral doses, making it one of the most expensive vaccines sold. That price may undercut the usefulness of the vaccine because the children least able to afford it will be the ones most in need of it. The vaccine could force some state health departments to abandon long-held promises to vaccinate all children regardless of income.

Read (New York Times)