Irish lawmakers were voting Thursday on historic legislation to introduce abortion in limited cases where the mother's life is at risk.

Weary lawmakers voted through the night with results expected at 5.00am local time (0400GMT).

Despite public health campaigns, smoking remains the leading avoidable cause of death worldwide, killing almost six million people a year, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

If current trends hold, the number of deaths blamed on tobacco use will rise to eight million a year in 2030, the WHO said in a briefing unveiled at a conference in Panama.

If you're lucky enough to live into your 90s, how well will your brain hold up? You may have an edge over people who got there ahead of you, a new study hints.

Researchers found that on tests of mental abilities, a group of 95-year-old Danes scored better than a group of Danes born 10 years earlier, who had been tested when they were about the same age.

The death toll from the H7N9 bird flu outbreak in China has risen to 43, national health authorities said in their latest monthly update on the disease.

A total of 132 human infections of the virus had been confirmed on the Chinese mainland by the end of June, the National Health and Family Planning Commission said late Wednesday.

The United States spends more per capita on health care than any place in the world but lags behind other wealthy nations in health and life expectancy, according to research published on Wednesday.

Japan still leads the world in terms of living the longest, with average life expectancy at 82.6 years in 2010, up from 79.1 years in 1990.

France's medical order has sanctioned nutritionist Pierre Dukan, whose high-protein diet has seen him sell millions of books and win over a slew of famous followers, for having prescribed a slimming drug linked to hundreds of deaths.

Dukan, whose diet was reportedly used by the Middleton family ahead of Kate's 2011 wedding to Britain's Prince William, was sanctioned for having prescribed the anti-diabetes drug Mediator to a female patient in 1971, his lawyer Edouard de Lamaze said.

Irish lawmakers are set to introduce abortion in limited cases where the mother's life is at risk, when controversial new laws go to a final vote Wednesday night.

The predominantly Catholic nation's abortion laws faced global scrutiny after the death of 31-year-old Indian woman Savita Halappanavar in a Galway hospital last October.

Long-term exposure to particulate air pollution boosts the risk of lung cancer, even at concentrations below the legal maximum, said a European study published on Wednesday.

A separate report said short-term surge in these particles or other gas pollutants in the air also increases the risk of heart failure.

A simplified lab can slash the cost of in-vitro fertilization treatment to around 200 euros ($256), offering hope to millions of infertile couples in the developing world, a conference heard on Monday.

The cost would be just 10 to 15 percent of western-style IVF programs, according to the Belgian team behind the project.

British researchers said Monday they have devised a test that can detect bladder cancer from certain odors in the urine.

The technique was inspired by reports about how dogs may be able to sniff out certain cancers, said researchers from the University of Liverpool and University of the West of England.