Cambodia has banned e-cigarettes and shisha pipes saying the increasingly popular products contain damaging levels of nicotine and are leading young people to take up smoking.

The National Authority for Combating Drugs (NACD) ordered authorities to immediately cease the import, use and sale of shisha tobacco and pipes and e-cigarettes across the country, according to a directive issued to local authorities on Wednesday.

A degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head has been found in a U.S. semi-professional football player who died last April, the New York Times reported Thursday.

Researchers at Boston University and VA Boston Healthcare System who have diagnosed many cases of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) said 29-year-old Patrick Grange showed damage on a level usually found in American football players.

A diet rich in calories and carbohydrates may slow progression of the lethal, degenerative Lou Gehrig's disease, according to a small-scale study reported in The Lancet on Friday.

Formally called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or motor neuron disease, the disorder affects nerve cells that control muscle movement.

A DNA test of a pregnant woman's blood is more accurate than current methods of screening for Down syndrome and other common disorders, new research finds. If other studies bear this out, it could transform prenatal care by giving a more reliable, non-invasive way to detect these problems very early in pregnancy.

That would let couples decide sooner whether to have an abortion or to prepare for a major medical problem. It also might cut down on the more invasive tests like amniocentesis to diagnose or rule out problems with a fetus.

A U.S. advisory board on Wednesday debated a controversial new technique that would use DNA from three people to produce embryos free of a particular type of hereditary disease.

The panel, which provides independent advice to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, weighed whether a procedure that replaces part of a human egg cell with that of another is safe for clinical trials.

A million newborn babies a year die within 24 hours, charity Save the Children said in a report, which urged governments to tackle preventable deaths.

The report by the British-based organisation, published Tuesday, said 6.6 million children around the world died in 2012 before their fifth birthday, mostly from preventable causes.

The Obama administration is proposing new food labels that would make it easier to know about calories and added sugars, a reflection of the shifting science behind nutrition.

Fat was the focus two decades ago when the labels first were created, but nutritionists are now more concerned with how many calories we eat

While many Americans struggle with extra weight, the obesity rate among U.S. preschoolers has dropped by nearly half in recent years, according to figures out Tuesday.

Just eight percent of children aged two to five were obese in 2011-2012, down from 14 percent in 2003-2004, according to findings from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Investigations in nine European countries have given statistical backing to claims that patients' lives may be at risk when nurses are overworked, specialists said on Wednesday.

Published in The Lancet, the study touches on a sensitive topic in countries where health budgets are under strain.

Acetaminophen, a common pain reliever considered safe for pregnant women, has been linked for the first time to an increased risk of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder in children, said a study Monday.

More studies are needed to confirm the findings, but experts said the research points to a new potential cause for the worldwide rise in cases of ADHD, a neuro-behavioral condition which has no known cause and affects as many as five percent of US children.