A gene scorecard may one day help predict which youngsters are likely to grow out of childhood asthma and which will have the disease in adulthood, a study said on Thursday.

Asthma is one of the commonest disorders among children in developed countries and is spreading fast in emerging economies.

The British government on Thursday said it would pursue a radical fertility technique that uses DNA from three parents to create an embryo.

The IVF-based technique is designed to avoid serious mitochondrial diseases inherited on the maternal side, such as muscular dystrophy.

Bellies wobbling and chubby limbs swinging, dozens of sweaty traffic cops exercise to the rhythm of Thai pop songs as part of a scheme to reduce the number of overweight police in Bangkok.

Poor diets and long hours in a sedentary job on the city's gridlocked streets have left the Thai capital's traffic police prone to piling on the pounds.

Shanghai has reported another death from H7N9 bird flu, the local government said, bringing the total number of fatalities nationwide to at least 40.

A 56-year-old man, the husband of an earlier victim, died on Wednesday, the Shanghai government said. He had been hospitalized since April.

Not only has America's high level of C-sections finally stopped rising, but more of the operations are taking place closer to the mother's due date, a new government report found.

Figures released Thursday show what appears to be a significant shift in when pregnant women have cesarean sections. Experts called the change great news — apparent evidence that doctors and women have absorbed warnings about the risks of C-sections and the importance of waiting to deliver until the baby is full-term.

Japan has given the green light to the world's first clinical trial using stem cells harvested from a patient's own body, officials said Thursday, testing a treatment that may offer hope to millions of people robbed of their sight.

A government committee approved proposals for tests aimed at treating age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a common medical condition that causes blindness in older people, using "induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells", a health ministry official said.

Japan Tobacco is suing the Thai government over plans to introduce bigger and more prominent anti-smoking warnings on cigarette packets, the company said on Wednesday, as rival Philip Morris vows similar action.

The Tokyo-based firm, one of the world's biggest cigarette companies, with brands including Winston and Benson & Hedges, said the planned changes from Thailand's public health ministry would interfere with its operations in the kingdom.

New drugs marketed as "legal highs" and "designer drugs" are emerging fast and in great numbers, and authorities are struggling to keep up, a new U.N. report warned Wednesday.

So-called new psychoactive substances (NPS), often sold under harmless names like spice, bath salts or herbal incense, posed a serious health risk although they were legal, the U.N. office on drugs and crimes (UNODC) said in its annual World Drug Report.

U.S. authorities on Tuesday urged all adults born between 1945 and 1965 to get tested for hepatitis C, saying millions of Americans are unaware that they are infected with the liver disease.

The so-called baby boom generation accounts for three out of four people with hepatitis C, according to Albert Siu, co-chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Hundreds of thousands of women at high risk of developing breast cancer in Britain should be given drugs which could dramatically reduce their chances of getting the disease, doctors were advised Tuesday.

In guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), up to half-a-million women with a family history of the illness should receive the £120 ($185, 141 euros), five-year course of tamoxifen or raloxifene.