The success of an AIDS vaccine trial that in 2009 was shown to protect 31 percent of people studied may have been due to varying levels of antibody responses in the patients, researchers said Thursday.

Different types of antibody responses were associated with who became infected and who did not, according to an analysis of the results published in the April 5 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

A new method of delivering cancer drugs that could cut down on chemotherapy's side effects and boost the strength of the tumor-fighting medicine showed promise, US researchers said Wednesday.

Early phase 1 studies on a small group of humans showed that the therapy, which delivers a potent cancer drug directly to the tumor through a process known as nanomedicine, is safe and shows some effectiveness in shrinking cancers.

Sweat drips down the face of a plump woman as she shuffles between exercise machines and pauses to greet passersby in Soweto's first outdoor gym, a new trend in South Africa, one of the world's fattest nations.

The facility, set in a park among tiny two-bedroom homes, has caught on with many Sowetans who are determined to lose the flab without signing expensive gym contracts.

A team of American University of Beirut researchers has found that raising taxes on tobacco products would both reduce the prevalence of smoking-related diseases as well as bring in much needed revenues into the national Treasury, an AUB press release said Thursday.

The one-year study was funded by the Canadian International Development and Research Center and led by three members of the AUB Tobacco Research Control Group: Professors Rima Nakkash, Jad Chaaban, and Nisreen Salti.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers Wednesday not to take a product called "Japan Rapid Weight Loss Diet Pills" because they contain a suspected cancer-causing agent.

The pills, advertised as promoting weight loss, are distributed by a company called Xiushentang and sold on popular web sites including Amazon.com, said the FDA.

Women's annual breast exams could be improved by adding ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to the usual mammogram, according to a U.S. study released Wednesday.

The research, published in the April 4 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that those two technologies helped spot small cancers that mammograms had missed.

Chinese women who ate cabbage, broccoli and leafy greens saw improved survival rates after breast cancer than women who did not eat these cruciferous vegetables, said a U.S. study Wednesday.

The findings came from data on 4,886 Chinese breast cancer survivors age 20-75 who were diagnosed with stage one to stage four breast cancer from 2002 to 2006 and who were part of the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival study.

Gene scans for everyone? Not so fast. New research suggests that for the average person, decoding your own DNA may not turn out to be a really useful crystal ball for future health.

Today, scientists map entire genomes mostly for research, as they study which genetic mutations play a role in different diseases. Or they use it to try to diagnose mystery illnesses that plague families. It's different from getting a genetic test to see if you carry, say, a particular cancer-causing gene.

For years, women have been urged to get screened for breast cancer because the earlier it's found the better. Now researchers are reporting more evidence suggesting that's not always the case.

A study in Norway estimates that between 15 and 25 percent of breast cancers found by mammograms wouldn't have caused any problems during a woman's lifetime, but these tumors were being treated anyway. Once detected, early tumors are surgically removed and sometimes treated with radiation or chemotherapy because there's no certain way to figure out which ones may be dangerous and which are harmless.

A simple low-cost silicon ring can slash the risk of premature birth, a major cause of death in newborns and health problems in adult life, according to a trial reported on Tuesday by The Lancet.

Spanish doctors tested the 38 euro ($49.50) device, known as a pessary, on women in their last three months of pregnancy who had cervical shortening, a condition that weakens the pelvic floor and leads to pre-term birth.