Drugmaker Pfizer Inc. said Monday that a midstage study of its experimental drug for advanced breast cancer, palbociclib, met the main goal.

The world's second-biggest drugmaker said the drug, combined with another medicine called letrozole, increased the time patients survived without tumors growing, compared with women just getting letrozole.

Could too much sugar be deadly? The biggest U.S. study of its kind suggests the answer is yes, at least when it comes to fatal heart problems.

It doesn't take all that much extra sugar, hidden in many processed foods, to substantially raise the risk, the researchers found, and most Americans eat more than the safest amount.

The shocking death of Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman from a suspected drugs overdose has spotlighted a growing epidemic of heroin use across the United States, officials warn

New York City Police Department investigators leave the apartment building of U.S. actor Philip Seymor Hoffman after he was reported dead on February 2, 2014 in the Greenwich Village area of New YorkView Photo

New cases of cancer will rise by half by 2030, reaching 21.6 million per year compared to 14 million in 2012, the U.N. said on Monday in a global analysis of the scourge.

Cancer deaths, meanwhile, will likely rise from 8.2 million to 13 million per year as the world's population grows and ages and more people adopt risky lifestyle habits, said the report compiled by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

The number of abortions performed in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in 40 years, a study said Monday, pointing to more contraception use rather than increased restrictions on access to the procedure.

In 2011, an estimated 16.9 abortions were carried out per 1,000 women aged between 15 and 44 -- 1.1 million in absolute terms.

Gay and bisexual teen boys use illicit steroids at a rate almost six times higher than do straight kids, a "dramatic disparity" that points up a need to reach out to this group, researchers say.

Reasons for the differences are unclear. The study authors said it's possible gay and bi boys feel more pressure to achieve a bulked-up "ideal" male physique, or that they think muscle-building steroids will help them fend off bullies.

Top British chef Heston Blumenthal has shut his London restaurant Dinner, which has two Michelin stars, for a week after 24 guests fell ill with the vomiting bug norovirus, officials said Sunday.

The closure comes five years after an outbreak of norovirus caused by contaminated shellfish forced Blumenthal to close The Fat Duck, his three-starred restaurant in Bray, west of the capital, for ten days.

U.S. health regulators on Friday approved the first drug to treat a sleep disorder that mainly afflicts the blind.

The Food and Drug Administration cleared Vanda Pharmaceuticals' Hetlioz capsules for patients who have problems sleeping because they can't detect light. The condition, called non-24-hour disorder, is estimated to affect up to 100,000 Americans, most of whom are totally blind. These people can find their sleep patterns reversed — sleeping during the day and being awake at night.

Dutch cities called Friday for the government to decriminalize cannabis cultivation and wholesale, which remain illegal despite easy access to the drug in hundreds of licensed coffee shops.

Eight of the Netherlands' 10 biggest cities, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, signed a manifesto in central city Utrecht calling for "creating a national system of certified and regulated cannabis cultivation," they said in a statement.

Vodka was a key contributor to the high death rate of Russian men under 55, according to researchers who highlighted the near-immediate, life-extending benefits of cutting back.

The findings published in The Lancet medical journal add to the already vast body of evidence on the dangers of binge drinking.